by D G Hervey
Marie asked, “Will we see this wide a range of birth holographs?”
“No,” replied Dr. Ozlem. “There is not much difference in what you see during a properly executed delivery regardless of whether the epidural, spinal block, or saddle block is used. The difference is in the woman’s tolerance for sensation during delivery, and in her recovery after the birth. For example, a spinal block could lead to a days-long headache. In contrast, an epidural allows an increase in sensations, not so much pain, but feeling, during delivery and a more rapid return to normalcy.”
Marie inquired, “I understand that a common procedure is to do an episiotomy. Under what circumstance would that procedure be used, and does the numbing method affect how is it tolerated?”
Dr. Ozlem responded, “You are correct that an episiotomy during delivery used to be common. It no longer is. All anesthesia procedures provide equally good tolerance for that procedure when it is employed. An episiotomy is performed to enlarge the vaginal opening only when, in the doctor’s opinion, it will be beneficial for some specific reason. Tears during delivery are common. In some circumstances an episiotomy may ease the repair of a tear or make the delivery of a large baby safer for mother and child. When one is done, it can become a contributing factor to post-menopausal vaginal atrophy, which is an eventual condition for a majority of women whether or not they have had an episiotomy.”
Marie asked, “I am curious about the drugs used in conjunction with delivery. Why and how are they administered?”
“Sometimes drugs are used,” Dr. Ozlem replied, “to make a woman’s contractions stronger. Oxytocin may be injected. But it simply reduces the woman’s time in labor and is not an important factor during delivery.”
“I hope you do not intend to show us instances where there was a still birth,” Marie exclaimed, “or when the infant died during delivery?”
Dr. Ozlem answered, “We have not included any of those in your current itinerary. No one is really ready when a full-term death of a fetus occurs.”
Marie responded, “I’ve heard that the mother has been lovingly caring for the baby for nine months and loves it even before it is born. So the loss would seem to be hers, rather like a mother experiencing the death of her child at any stage of its life.”
“I suppose so,” Dr. Ozlem replied.
“Okay,” Jon summarized, “there are a lot of possibilities that we may experience in your delivery room. But is there really much of a difference in what you would have Marie and me doing?”
“For Marie,” Dr. Ozlem responded, “there is almost no change. Because of her problems with balance, we believe that during delivery, the best thing she can do is to be seated at the head of the woman, to talk to her, keep her mind off of her pain and what we doctors are doing, except when we instruct her otherwise.
“For you, Jon, there is a bit of a difference. We expect both of you to scrub and wear sterile gowns, sock covers, and gloves. For most births, Jon, you will take the newborn girl from atop her mother’s stomach after the umbilical cord is cut. Then you’ll put her under some bright, warming lights. There you should observe her reactions. I encourage you to touch the babies, gently rub in the vernix caseosa which is a protective substance on the skin of a newborn baby. Babies like skin-to-skin, or cuddle time. But for a caesarean birth, the infant may be so fragile that we’d prefer to handle it ourselves, or have a nurse do so if the mother is in more need of a doctor’s attention.”
“So,” concluded Jon, “I take it that the holographic deliveries are more to ensure that Marie and I can tolerate the scenes we might encounter in the delivery room. They will show that I can see blood without passing out. I am interested to see what you have to show us. I’ve been interested in observing the mammalian births I’ve witnessed in person so far: cats, dogs, and calves. You’ll find that I am interested, not at all put off.”
“Even without a Parrot,” Dr. Ozlem remarked, “Jon, you see through what our concerns are. But, yes, we do want you both to be prepared for what you may observe during deliveries. We want you not to comment on or respond adversely to what we are doing, since that might unnecessarily alarm the woman in delivery.”
Marie responded, “That all makes good sense to me.”
Dr. Ozlem complimented, “Jon, as usual you are an attentive host. Thanks for the nice cup of tea. Any time you two are ready to watch the holographic set up we have for you, we are ready?”
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Both Jon and Marie were excited to see in advance what they might witness in the delivery room and especially to get the detailed instructions on scrubbing up.
Chapter 14 - Party
Marie decided that it was time to take Vrike up on her offer for the pregnant quilters to use the winery for a party. She decided that it would be nice to overlap some with the winery lunchers, but not to crowd them out. So she elected for the party to start at 10 o’clock and be officially over by 11:30. Of course, the women could hang around, visit with friends and make new ones as they might desire. All of the quilters were invited to bring their in-progress or finished quilts for display on the winery’s long wooden table.
Marie planned to arrive by 9:30. She wanted to be there before the quilters began showing up. Her desire, as was her habit, was to be at least 15 minutes ahead of the first guest who might arrive.
Vrike and Marie arranged for some food and drink that was a bit different from the normal fare of the winery. Marie made several different quiches using a variety of healthful green vegetables, with various cheeses to suit. Jon made some homemade-from-scratch, small yeast rolls and some plum tarts, a couple of his specialties. Marie also made some tiny deep-dish pizzas with various toppings including onion, fresh mushroom, sweet peppers, Italian sausage, pepperoni, and spinach. She used tomato-based pizza sauce for most of them and, since Jon was allergic to tomato, a few with his favorite, Alfredo sauce.
For her part, Vrike served a variety of fruit juices, including apple, pineapple, grape, pear, pomegranate, and other tropical juices. She had plenty of her normal fare: loaves of bread, cheeses, fresh seedless grapes, a wide variety of nuts, and a lavish olive bar. She also provided fresh chilled berries, including the typical ones and Dorman red raspberries a la Jon.
Promptly at 9:30 Marie and Jon walked into the winery, bringing their contributions to the party. Marie observed, “My, Vrike, you’ve outdone yourself with all of this wonderful, fresh produce. What healthful fare we are providing for our pregnant quilters.”
“My turn will come around before too long,” Vrike replied. “This is the kind of food that I expect to be eating then.”
“Why Vrike, I’d expect nothing less from you,” stated Jon. “I bet you are already eating healthfully, preparing yourself for when your turn comes.”
“It is what I do,” admitted Vrike. “But now I permit myself to have some healthful red wine. However, setting a good example for our guests, I’ll be foregoing that drink, at least while our expecting guests are here.”
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Soon the pregnant quilters began arriving with their finished quilts and quilt tops.
Ykon came first. “It won’t be long now,” she effused. “I’m ready for this pregnancy to be over.”
Vrike sympathized, “I’ve heard that line from others. It appears that the eighth month must seem the longest.”
“I could list a number of problems,” Ykon commented. “Breathing gets more difficult. My bladder seems to hold less. It is hard to find a comfortable position for sleeping. I used to lie on my stomach, but no more. My breasts have gotten larger. Dr. Cuadro says that those are typical problems and responses of the body. I’m ready to have Zarifa and get on with the next stage of my life, motherhood.”
Seeing Ykon’s quilt, Vrike remarked, “What a different quilt you have made. I expected for them all to be pink and white with perhaps some light blue bits. I like your earth-tone quilt, but I don’t recognize all of the animals on it. May I spread it out on the long table for you.
That is where Marie thought the display of quilts should be.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “Yes, please do. I’ll just wander past the food and drinks to think of when I’ll be able to chow down on as much of it as I can hold. There’s not a lot of room for food in my middle anymore. The good part of that is that I am already at the weight that Dr. Cuadro likes. What’s more, what appeals to me has changed. Oh yes, I know, Dr. Cuadro says that is all normal as well. Anyway, I ate a meager breakfast. In the pod, I was smelling the rolls and things that Jon and Marie were making and knew that I couldn’t pass it all up.”
“I find the smell of yeast breads to be quite enticing,” agreed Jon.
Marie commented, “We’ve both had some of those rolls for our breakfast.”
The rest of their pod arrived en masse, Haley, Tami, Fawn, Niki, and Azek.
“Somehow,” muttered Tami, “food has no appeal at all.”
Ykon asked, “Do you have morning sickness?”
“Yes,” she replied. “How long does it last?”
Ykon answered, “Mine lasted a little over a month. I think that I was lucky for it to be over so quickly. But, some expecting women don’t ever have morning sickness.”
“At least for now,” Tami remarked, “I shouldn’t have to worry about gaining too much weight.”
“You were inseminated, what,” asked Jon, “two weeks ago?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “And I was okay for several days. I think my first symptoms were on day four.”
“My grandmother,” recalled Marie, “used to tell me that, with all three of her pregnancies, she was sure on the fourth day that she’d conceived. She said that she felt it somehow. I think that is about when the placenta attaches to the wall of the uterus.”
Looking at Ykon, Tami asked her, “Which is the worst, your first month or your last month?”
“Worst?” Ykon exclaimed. “Why I embrace it all. I am pleased to be pregnant, want my daughter, and am ready to get on with being a mother. But, I would rather not have morning sickness if I could avoid it. The last month is mainly full of anticipation and some discomfort. I can put up with discomfort.”
“Tami, I am sorry that you cannot enjoy the offerings this morning,” sympathized Jon. “But, feel free to make yourself a plate of what might appeal to you later.”
Vrike offered, “If you tell me what you are willing to have back in your pod for later, I’ll be glad to make a to-go package for you. I know that smells can be a real turn off. But with me getting them for you, you won’t have to smell things up close where the odor is stronger.”
“How thoughtful, Vrike,” observed Jon. “Let me carry it back to the pod for you, Tami.”
Marie corrected, “He still has not gotten used to having bots to do your bidding for such tasks.”
Tami stepped aside to tell Vrike what she wanted.
“Who in our pod,” Jon asked the group, “is next scheduled for insemination?”
Fawn replied, “I guess that I am. It’ll be within the month. I’ve picked out my sperm donor.”
Marie asked, “Did you find a Hopi to be your donor?”
“No,” she answered, “I did not elect to have a Hopi donor. But I have chosen another native-American.”
Jon asked, “From which tribe?”
“He is actually a combination of Caddo and Apache,” Fawn answered.
Haley asked, “Is being a native-American a requirement you have for your donors?”
“I thought it would be nice at least for my first daughter,” responded Fawn. “After this, I just have to wait and see. I did not know I was going for a native-American this time, until I saw his bio. Then it had an appeal.”
“My first insemination,” remarked Haley, “is so far off that it seems forever.”
Marie encouraged, “Enjoy the time you have. Being a mother is a big job. At least it was for me when we took on a foster son.”
“But you loved it, Marie,” Jon commented. “You like having responsibility. You respond to it well. It seems that you seek it out sometimes.”
“I guess that’s right” she agreed. “I initiated us taking on our foster son.”
Praising Marie in the presence of the group, Jon added, “Marie organizes quilting groups wherever we are, if there isn’t one for her to join. She liked the idea of teaching. She got her degree so she could teach homemaking. When that became obsolete she took calculus so she could teach math. Later she changed careers and studied law to become a legal secretary. To me, she seems to gravitate to jobs with a lot of responsibility.”
Haley walked up, joining the group surrounding Jon and Marie. She remarked, “I’ve been anticipating this gathering. The food is unusual and smells enticing. I am especially excited to see all of the baby quilts you expecting mothers have made. The one I am working on, with your help, Marie, will be big enough for my own bed, and it has no pink in it. But what I look forward to the most is the opportunity to learn more about what the others may tell me about the jobs they are doing. Since I finished my quilt, I have not been in Marie’s quilting room so I have not been keeping up with their activities.”
“You shouldn’t have to wait long,” encouraged Jon. “Here comes a big group with Subtle’s Doctors Ozlem and Cuadro.”
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Soon eleven quilts were spread out on the long wooden table with the green and white checkered tablecloth. On one end was Ykon’s unique quilt. Next came the baby quilts of the other nine pregnant women. On the other end of the table, Jon was displaying the hand quilted, large quilt he had brought from Earth.
The two obstetricians, Doctors Cuadro and Ozlem, wanted to see the finished quilts since they had observed many of them at their early stages of construction. They walked up to the display table.
There, the ever inquisitive Haley asked Dr. Cuadro. “I have been wondering, do you know of many research groups that have staffing in both Hidden and Subtle? The one I joined on human life extension does. We care for some animals in Subtle’s zoo, a couple of bonobos that are a part of the experimenting that is in progress. There are MDs working on it in Hidden, and we have a couple of PhDs working on the project here in Subtle.”
Dr. Cuadro answered, “Yes, I know of some. When several researchers are involved in a project, it seems wise to staff the research with women from both Subtle and Hidden. There are several reasons. They can independently replicate each others experimental results. If something goes wrong, accidentally, with an experiment in one location, such as a sickness killing some experimental animals, then there is typically a separate location clear of the problem or pathogen. There are two lead investigators, one in Subtle and one in Hidden. This creates competition. Competition spurs progress. Thus, if a lead investigator goes full-speed-ahead with an idea that is not fruitful, the other one can be taking a more measured or just different approach. This can have the project making progress despite the non-fruitful approach taken by that one lead investigator.”
“That all makes sense,” Haley remarked. “Are you working on a research project in addition to looking after all of the inseminations and pregnant women?”
“I am,” Dr. Cuadro replied, “We’ve been gathering information on one subject from our database and sifting new information from it as our database grows. We are presently working on a variety of possible uses for human umbilical-cord blood. The red blood cells are typically saved, cryopreserved, in case the child should later develop a health issue in which these young red blood cells could be used for treatment. But there is also plasma with stem cells in umbilical-cord blood that may be useful. There are a wealth of possible benefits that may be derived from the plasma, its stem cells, and proteins. Of course, presently, Calypso does not have a supply of human umbilical-cord blood with which to perform experiments. But we soon will have. Some of our problem will be the lack of suitable human subjects on which to experiment, trying the various possible uses. We have just Jon and Marie as elder citizens, who are likely to benefit from some
of the possibilities. So far, they have not been approached about them participating as experimental subjects. So, it is likely that we will experiment on older primates, other than humans, at least initially. That is, unless there seems to be a need with Jon’s or Marie’s health. Then I may endeavor to convince them to try something that is not a well-proven treatment on other primates.”
Haley asked, “Are there special components of the plasma that might prove to be of benefit to them?”
“There are a variety,” responded Dr. Cuadro. “Giving elders transfusions of blood from younger people has seemed to extend their lives. Giving stem cells and some specific proteins from the young to the elders seems to provide a variety of rejuvenations, refreshing old tissues. This may be in mental capacity, especially memory and learning, refreshing the hippocampus. But, there are a wealth of other possibilities for what may be helped. One of the pregnant women here, Kalari, is actually a molecular cell biologist working in Subtle on this research.”
Living in the same pod where the quilting is done in Marie’s sewing room, Haley knew which one Kalari was because she often hurried through their common room instead of the quilting room’s back door. She decided to seek out Kalari to discuss her role in that research with her.
Ykon was admiring the other baby quilts and staying close by to listen to comments others made about the quilt she had made. Vrike went to view the display of quilts. As she came to the first one she said to Ykon, “I saw your quilt when I spread it out on the table. I find it touching that you are keeping your national tradition alive with your quilt design. Marie has told me that the animals on the quilt are all native, not just to Africa, but to your Sudan. You have been wonderfully creative. Your quilt is truly one of a kind.”