State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [131]
“There’s a bulb in the bag,” Dr. Swenson said.
“I need another set of hands.”
“You don’t have them. Make do.”
Marina grabbed at the bulb which shot out of her bloody glove and skidded across the floor where it was caught, like all balls, by a five-year-old boy loitering nearby. “Christ!” Marina said. “At least get somebody to wash it off.”
And Dr. Swenson, without a word, motioned for the bulb to be run through the bucket with soap and water and so it was returned to Marina who used it to pull up a half pint of liquid that she then shot onto the floor beside her. She did it again. There, beneath so many layers, she could see the baby face down, feet to the head, bottom lodged firmly in the pelvis. Marina tried to sit the baby up but it was stuck.
“Lift the breech,” Dr. Swenson said.
“I’m trying,” Marina said, irritated.
“Just tug it up.”
Marina moved the shoehorns to the inside of the uterus and motioned for the nurse to pull, to really pull, which this woman who was herself doomed to a lifetime of constant reproduction did with all her might while Marina reached in and tried to pry the baby out. It was wedged into the mother like a child who had shoved himself into the tiniest cabinet during a childish game and could then not be coaxed out. The muscles in Marina’s shoulders and neck strained, her back pulled. It was a physical test of strength, 142 pounds of Marina Singh against six pounds of baby, and then with a great sucking sound the baby dislodged. The man with the knife put his hand on Marina’s back to keep her from falling over. Red and white and shining, one entire boy flipped over on the mother’s chest.
“Look at that. Could that have been easier?” Dr. Swenson gave a single, decisive clap. “Give the baby to them now. They know all about this.” No sooner were the words spoken than the slippery child was out of her hands, the thick liver of placenta going with him. The entire crowd bore him away, the old and the young made off with the astonishingly new. They had proof of something spectacular happening now. As many births as there had been no one was completely inured to the charms of infants. “Do you remember the rest of it? Massage the uterus now. This is the part I always liked, reconstruction, restoring order to the chaos.” Dr. Swenson leaned forward for a better look. “The baby is gone, he’s someone else’s problem, and you can pay more attention to the details. There isn’t the same sense of urgency.”
From the other side of the room the baby was crying now and the husband, still fixed to his wife’s hand, craned his head towards the sound. “Tap the Ketamine,” Dr. Swenson said. “There’s no point in her waking up now.” Marina suctioned out the belly again and set to work on the heavy stitches, a procedure as delicate as closing a Thanksgiving turkey with kitchen twine. The nurse, so much braver than one would have imagined, moved her shoehorns back knowledgeably while Marina reassembled everything she had taken apart: the uterus sewn, the bladder placed back on top.
“This is a good man,” Dr. Swenson said, nodding to the husband. “He stayed right with her. You don’t see that. They like to go fishing. Sometimes when they hear it was a son they’ll come in for a look, but that’s about it.”
“Maybe it’s their first,” Marina said.
Dr. Swenson shook her head. “I should know that. I can’t remember.”
Marina was making her last knot when the baby was returned. She slid the Ketamine out of the woman’s arm and lay the baby there in its place, though the mother, who was just barely flicking her eyelids, did nothing to hold it. It was a good looking baby, two furry eyebrows and a rounded mouth, swaddled in striped yellow cloth. He gave half a cry and half a yawn and everyone seemed to find this charming.
Marina was stiff coming up off her knees. “See?” Dr. Swenson said, pointing. “It’s hard enough for you.”
Marina nodded, taking off her gloves, and looked at the blood on her arms, the blood on her dress, the tidal pool of blood in which she had been sitting. “Good Lord,” she said. She looked in the bag for a