Short Stories Project

Saturday, March 26, 2005

You (Part II)

< Part I :: Return to Index :: Part III >

2) Conception
Time: 18 years


You will arrive into the world around National Day, that’s what the gynaecologist will tell me. I, of course, know better.

You came a lot sooner than August Ninth. I was prepared for it, waiting it out in the hospital. Sure enough, three weeks before National Day, without hardly any surprise for me (your dad nearly fainted), sharp stabs of pain shot in my lower back then in my belly while I was napping. The contractions arrived faster, in more intensive waves that had me rocking on the hospital bed. In no time, although it seemed like weeks at that time, my water broke. I was rushed into delivery room, with your dad clutching my hand. I think he was even more blustery than me.

I can tell you that your birth was no less easier even with my knowledge of how it would be.

Apparently, there were some problems. Your position in my womb was all wrong, and prevented you from sliding out smoothly. Nonetheless, the gynaecologist wanted me to try it on my own first. I knew, already, even then, that you will not come into the world that way. I tried to tell them that, but it must have came out a string of incoherent curses, for your dad coloured and he has the skin of a rhino.

Nonetheless, I heaved and pushed with the ancient rhythm that would come to any woman. After what seemed like eternity, the gynecologist announced that too much time had passed, and that if they didn’t do something fast, the baby girl would suffer.

With the well-oiled efficiency of a good medical team, I was injected with anesthesia and fell into a drug induced stupor and then was subsequently operated on. I can hazily remember hearing your loud squalls as you were brought into my arms, wrapped up in a little pink blanket. I think of your delivery, then felt pride and joy. It is a feeling every mother should experience. Mingled with my happiness, was a sense of loss and regret, knowing you never will.

Silently, I wished you god speed and luck, as I pressed a light kiss on your forehead. A few minutes later, your cries grew softer and your heart stopped beating.

The gynecologists moved into yet another well practiced ballet, a flurry of motion, order within chaos, as they tried to resuscitate you. In no mortal danger, I was removed from the delivery room. Besides, I was too distraught and kept disrupting their work (knowing consequences didn’t prevent me from feeling emotions or yelling at people). Your dad was torn, as if his loyalty was divided. In the end, he came with me.

In my recovery ward, I grew calm again. I realised that there was nothing I could do even if I wanted to. Besides, I already knew what will happen in the end, so why grief now? Your father, however, got more and more agitated. One look at my accepting face and he lost his temper, accusing me of everything under the sun. I did it deliberately, made them gave me a Caesarean, somehow, someway, stopped your beating heart the moment I kissed you.

How could I let him know that I already knew it would happen the way it did? He would think of me as a freak. Soon, his accusations ran deeper, more bitter. He said I was not a dutiful wife, that I didn’t love him any more, that I was having an affair. A bit preposterous, the idea of a hundred sixty pound woman having an affair. More absurd was the fact that he was accusing me of misdeeds he himself was guilty of in the end.

You came back to the world only a few minutes after your heart stopped, and the doctor said it was a minor complication of pre-labour that had been easily remedied. But it was already a few minutes too late. The future I have already seen began to set forth with an inexorable momentum.

The first seeds of discord between your father and I had been sowed with your birth. You were not the cause of our dissonance, merely a catalyst that accelerated a truth that would have played itself out come what may.

< Part I :: Return to Index :: Part III >

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