Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [14]
Now, Dr. Nelson left the room, and I could tell that Liz was getting more and more nervous as the time to deliver approached. I went to her bed and held her hands. As I rubbed her palm with my thumb, I kissed her on the cheek then whispered in her ear, telling her just how excited I was to finally see the daughter we had created. I’ll never forget how beautiful she looked at that moment. She was pale, but this ethereal glow emanated from her. The pain she felt clouded the room, yet her eyes had an incredible gleam, like she knew that this hard-fought battle was almost over and that everything was going to work out just as we had hoped it would.
When the time arrived to wheel Liz to her first meeting with our baby, I grabbed the cameras and followed behind. With a nurse at Liz’s head pushing her bed down the hallway and Anya by her side holding her hand, I filmed the entire ride from room number #7 to the delivery room. Once we entered a sterile hallway through a set of double doors, the nurse informed me that they had to do a bit of prep work before Liz’s C-section, and told me to wait outside the delivery room until someone called me in. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. I love you so much” is what I said to Liz as she was wheeled away.
After I changed into operating room gear—a daddy suit, as the nurses called it—and Anya headed back to the waiting room, I was alone for the first time in a few hours. I nervously paced up and down the hallway, taking a few photos of the hospital equipment along the walls of the corridor, and worrying now not about our baby, but about my wife.
Soon, a nurse opened one of the doors to the delivery room and beckoned me in. My anxiousness suddenly multiplied a million times, and I started to sweat. My eyes were immediately drawn to the big blue paper sheet hanging at the crest of the mountain that was Liz’s pregnant belly. I wouldn’t be seeing anything I didn’t want to see, but suddenly I didn’t give a shit what I saw. I realized at that moment just how ridiculous my earlier neuroses about the delivery actually were. As long as everything worked out fine, I’d be happy to watch ten full-grown adults and a bear pop from her vagina, high-fiving each of them on the way out. I was brought back to reality by a nurse instructing me to wash my hands and arms up to my elbows.
As I stepped on the foot pump to start the water running, I heard Liz’s voice. I couldn’t really make out her words, but a louder, male voice said, “Your wife has been given some pain medication. She’s conscious, but she’s not totally lucid.” I was directed to a chair next to her hospital bed, and I sat down to her right, our heads parallel. I whispered to her, “I love you.” She said, “I love you, too. And I love my, uh, ana, ana, uh, anesthesi…whatever.” I craned my neck toward Liz’s new best friend, the anesthesiologist. Smiling behind my face mask, I thanked him for taking care of her.
I reached for Liz’s hand and looked around the room, seeing, in addition to the anesthesiologist, a couple of nurses and a doctor. A few seconds later, Dr. Nelson walked in and said that they were ready to get started. “We’ll have your baby out in fewer than thirty minutes.”
That’s it? I only have to wait half an hour to meet the daughter of my dreams? Awesome.
Soon the sound of hospital instruments got louder, and the unmistakable nonsmell of sterility and surgery permeated the stale air in the room. I continued to hold Liz’s hand, and I realized at a certain point that I might have squeezed it