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Chai Tea Sunday

Page 3

by Heather A. Clark


  “No, Ma, really. I’ll be up in a minute. You guys go on ahead.”

  “But aren’t you dying to tell your brothers?”

  “Soon, Ma. Just give me a few minutes. You guys go ahead.”

  Despite the occasional friction Eric had with his parents, his repeated resistance took me slightly off guard. I had never really given his need for alone time much thought; I simply responded by letting him take the time he needed by finding someone else to carry on my never-ending conversation with. But with my developing baby now taking up all of my focus, I wondered how the impeding world of fatherhood would affect him and his need for frequent solitude.

  Amelia finally gave up and turned to catch up with her husband who was already halfway to the cottage. With Eric’s parents so far ahead of me, I took my own moment of pause on the Muskoka steps leading up to the cottage to turn and watch Eric. His gaze was permanently fixed on the lake as he shoved his hands in his pockets, letting his thoughts get lost in the overarching pink and orange sky.

  4

  As my pregnancy progressed, my belly bump grew. Despite Eric’s constant doting and worrying, the OB/GYN who took the place of Dr. Sansi once I had successfully completed the first trimester assured me that my monthly checkups were normal. Our little peanut was growing beautifully and, as the doctor always described, as happy as a clam.

  At eighteen weeks, I went for the standard prenatal ultrasound. I was told to drink plenty of water and not pee, which was about as easy as not blinking when someone blows straight into your eyes. By that point, I had six inches of baby sitting on a very full bladder.

  The technician brought me into the dim room and squeezed warmed jelly on my belly. She placed the transducer (I had become an ultrasound naming expert during my time with Dr. Sansi) on my abdomen and started to take the baby’s measurements.

  I lay on my back for forty-five minutes, dying to see what she was looking at, until, finally, she asked if I’d like for her to get Eric from the waiting room so that we could see the baby together.

  “Yes! Please!” I replied, grateful that we could experience seeing the baby together. Eric walked in behind the technician, and then she showed us the baby’s itty-bitty pulsing heart and let us listen to its magical beat.

  Then the technician panned the baby to reveal two arms, two legs and an adorable face with two ears, two eyes, a nose and a mouth.

  “Is that . . . ?” Eric’s voice trailed off and he pointed to something resembling a small tube that had floated onto the screen.

  “No,” the technician laughed. “That’s the umbilical cord. But I do know if it is a boy or a girl, if you’d like to know.”

  Eric had stayed firm on our decision to not know the baby’s sex, but I could tell the pendulum was starting to sway to my side. He shifted his feet and cleared his throat, obviously a bit uncomfortable and not knowing which way we should go.

  “It’s up to you, Eric. You know I’m happy to find out or wait.”

  “Oh, okay, well, let’s just do it. Let’s find out. I thought it would be better to find out the day the baby is born. But it seems more real now that I know someone else knows the sex of our baby. I think I need to know too.” Eric squeezed my hand. “Let’s go for it!”

  I nodded at the ultrasound technician, signalling that I agreed with Eric.

  “Well, since you’ve decided to find out, why don’t I just show you?” The technician punched in a few buttons on the ultrasound machine in order to bring up a new screen. “Here are the baby’s legs, which we saw before. Here is the middle of the baby’s legs, and you can clearly see that there is nothing there hanging around. If it were a boy, you would see a swollen lump directly in between the baby’s legs. It’s a pretty clear shot, so I would say with some serious certainty that you are having a little baby . . . girl!”

  A girl! I knew it.

  Some might call it maternal instinct, while others would point out that I had a fifty-fifty shot at guessing the baby’s sex, but every fibre in me had screamed we were having a girl.

  Eric wiped away the tear that had started to roll down my cheek. “Congratulations, Mama. Looks like we’ll be bringing home a daughter in a few short months. We better go and buy some pink!”

  The autumn air became cooler, and a hint of winter was promised in every new morning frost. The bright red leaves on our backyard maple trees were a long-lost thought, and the chill in the air brought shivers to anyone who stepped outside.

  Except me.

  My belly had continued to explode, acting as a cozy home for our baby girl and a warming blanket for me. Despite always being cold in my pre-pregnancy days, I was constantly hot, and chose to ignore Eric’s grumbles when I insisted on sleeping with all of our windows open.

  As Christmas drew near, Eric and I went about our annual holiday duties. He put up the lights while I baked gingersnap cookies and made peanut butter balls for all of our nieces and nephews.

  Three weeks before Santa was due to arrive, while we were sitting in front of the fire munching on warm shortbread cookies straight from the oven and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows (extra for me given that I seemed to feel better after copious amounts of sugar), Eric brought up names for our baby.

  “I think we should really pick our name, Nic. It’s getting close,” Eric pressed, wiping crumbs from my belly, which, somewhere along the way, seemed to have become a food trap for anything that didn’t quite make it into my mouth.

  “Uh-oh. Here we go again. We’ve been through the baby name book every day for the past three months. Nothing is jumping out!”

  “Doesn’t mean we don’t need to pick a name. We can’t raise a little girl named Baby Sedgwick,” Eric teased.

  “Okay, what new names are you thinking of?” I asked, taking a big bite. The maraschino cherry pressed into the centre of the cookie was gooey compared to the satiny crumble of the shortbread.

  “Well, I was thinking lately that I really like Emma,” Eric replied. “What do you think?”

  “Hmm. Too popular,” I answered.

  “Okay, how about Matilda?”

  “Too trendy. And too Hollywood.”

  We were having another repeat of our daily conversations and getting nowhere. For some reason, I just couldn’t seem to commit to a name. Nothing seemed good enough. Nothing seemed right.

  “I know — Whitney!”

  “Uh . . . no. I’d feel like we were raising someone destined for MTV.”

  “Well, we can’t have that.” Eric scratched his head. “Maybe we should take a different approach and consider the names of our relatives. My grandmothers don’t really help at all, given that they were Stelladora and Beatrice.”

  “Um, yeah, just a little old-fashioned.” I looked into the fire and thought of our grandmothers, and any iteration that came from their names. And then it hit me. “But what about Ella?”

  Eric stared at me in disbelief. “I can’t believe you finally like a name! That’s a version of my nana’s name . . . I love it. Are you sure about it?”

  “Yes. I definitely like it. A lot. And I love that it is special.”

  “Well, then, Ella it is.” Eric smiled at me. “Now what about a middle name?”

  “Don’t push it, Eric. It’s a wonder that we even found a first name.”

  “Just hear me out. I think I have a great suggestion. What about Ella Margaret? I think a plane ride back from Laos warrants being named after, yes?” Eric suggested, referring to my sister. “Not to mention that Margaret is your mom’s middle name.”

  “And my grandmother’s middle name, actually.”

  “So it’s perfect!”

  “Ella Margaret,” I said out loud, realizing that I loved it. It had a charming ring to it that felt like home.

  “Do we have a winner?”

  “I think we do. It really feels like the right name,
” I confirmed, kissing Eric and sinking into him next to the warmth of the fire.

  “Mmm-hmm. I love it too. And I love you, Nicky.” Eric nuzzled into my neck, and my insides stirred.

  I deepened the kiss. Reached out to my husband in a way that I had avoided since living through the hormone crazies of my second trimester. And Eric immediately reacted, drawing me closer with a response so intense it felt like obsession.

  Within moments, heat as strong as the fire we were sitting beside snaked through our bodies. My breath caught on the fervor of its intensity, both of us desperate for the peak that was as selfish as it was giving.

  On the Saturday morning after we chose Ella’s name, Eric finished painting the nursery. He had been working on it for over two weeks, taking painstaking efforts to ensure every detail was perfect. He had painted the walls light green before adding giant lilac bubbles to one wall to match the decor I had selected. He had been fastidious about every inch and I knew the finished room was going to be perfect.

  “Do you think we can move the furniture in now?” I asked Eric, taking in the newly painted room. “I can call the store manager to see if everything can be delivered today. I know it’s short notice, but they said to just give them a ring when we were ready.”

  We had purchased all of Ella’s furniture at a trendy baby boutique and they were holding everything in storage for us until we needed it. We had spent a large chunk of change at the store, purchasing everything from our overpriced baby stroller to organic baby bibs, and I had gone a bit overboard with the number of sleepers and outfits I had purchased. I just couldn’t seem to contain my baby excitement and it showed through my shopping bills.

  The store manager confirmed everything would arrive that afternoon, and within hours of Eric’s last brush stroke, the doorbell rang and two burly men sporting late-afternoon stubble and sweat marks down their backs carried all of Ella’s furniture into her room.

  Eric and I spent the rest of the day taking our purchases out of boxes and putting everything away. I washed all of her clothes in Ivory Snow while Eric surrounded himself with tools and bolts in order to put together the glider.

  I removed the delicious smelling baby clothes from the dryer and neatly folded her onesies and jammies before putting them into drawers. Ella’s closet was a sea of pink, including the little dresses I had purchased on my own and the outfits that so many of our generous friends had given to us at our baby showers. Her change table held little white baskets lined in lilac and green bubble cloth, which we had filled with unopened baby creams and newborn diapers.

  “It’s exactly as I imagined it,” I sighed, stepping back from Eric to admire Ella’s sweet baby room. Every detail had been finished. I sat in the glider, holding the pillows that had been customized to match the decor of the room, and imagined myself rocking my baby girl to sleep at night.

  “I love it too.” Eric kneeled beside me, putting the pillow aside and taking my hand in his. I leaned towards my husband and somehow managed to kiss his forehead. My bulging baby bump had become a source of restraint for me, and even the smallest movements were proving difficult.

  As my body tilted forward, the cross necklace that Eric had given me at Babouch leaned with me, and then gently hit my throat as I returned to a sitting position. I touched the delicate necklace with my fingers, happy to have it fastened securely around my throat. I hadn’t taken it off since Eric had given it to me. It served as a constant reminder of the adversity we had faced and, with it, the marital strength that had ensued.

  “And now we wait,” Eric said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’m going for cookies. Want some?”

  “Always.”

  “You stay comfortable and I’ll go get some Christmas cookies and two glasses of milk so we can toast Ella’s new room.”

  Eric jumped up and took a final look around before heading downstairs to get our well-deserved afternoon snack. As I sat back in the chair and watched him retreat downstairs, my heart filled with warmth at the thought of how lucky we both truly were.

  And then I felt it.

  5

  A twinge of pain hit my lower abdomen, followed by a light gush when I shifted in the glider. Uncertain of what was going on, I waddled to the bathroom and quickly noticed a pale pink streak of blood lining my underwear. My breath quickened. I wiped myself with a tissue, and found more streaks of light red.

  “Eric!” I cried, suddenly feeling nervous and sick to my stomach. “Can you come here? I need you.”

  Hearing the urgency in my voice, Eric appeared almost instantly. He held the plate of cookies in his hand.

  “It’s blood. I’m spotting and I don’t know why.” I held the tissue up to the light and panicked again when I saw it.

  Eric took one look and set the cookies down. He left to get the phone. I could hear him talking to the nurse who was clearly telling him to bring me into the hospital.

  “They want to check you out, hon,” Eric said. He rubbed my back and wiped away my tears. “Just think. This could be it! Remember what they told us in our prenatal class. Early labour often starts this way.”

  He guided me to our closet and I threw on the first outfit I could find. Eric grabbed the packed hospital bag that was waiting patiently beside my dresser, packed two months earlier, and held my hand as we walked down the steps.

  Eric called his parents to fill them in on what was going on as he ushered me towards the car. “Yes, yes . . . I think she is fine. We’re just taking her in to check her out. Plus the nurse thinks it could be the onset of early labour. I’ll call you as soon as we know anything more.”

  “Slow down!” I cried as Eric peeled out of our driveway and raced down the street. My knuckles turned white from holding onto the car door so tightly. “I know we need to get there, but we aren’t going to make it if you crash this car!” Ignoring me, Eric blew through a red stoplight. I cranked my head to look behind us, hoping that I wouldn’t find rotating cherries on top of a police car. I didn’t, and Eric kept his foot securely pressed on the gas pedal.

  About halfway to the hospital, my lower abdomen started to contract and I knew I was in labour. The on-call baby doctor, who introduced herself as Dr. Marlow when she walked into the room where Eric and I were waiting, checked dilation and quickly agreed with my self-diagnosis. Despite being a few weeks shy of full term, our baby definitely wanted out.

  Putting her hand on my knee, Dr. Marlow explained that, typically, a woman in such an early stage of labour would be sent home. It could be days of labour before Ella actually made her grand entrance. But Dr. Marlow wanted to watch me for a few hours to check my progress.

  It was at the precise moment that Dr. Marlow was explaining all of this that my water broke in a huge gush, making the linens I was lying on sopping wet. “Well, looks like you just bought yourself an admission. This is the real thing!” Dr. Marlow smiled. “Let’s take a quick look on the ultrasound to assess final position and we’ll go from there.”

  The nurse wheeled in the portable L&D ultrasound and squeezed the familiar jelly — this time not warmed — onto my aching abdomen. She narrowed her eyes at the black and white TV image before her. She frowned. Every muscle in my body matched the contractions that were going on in my gut.

  “What is it, Dr. Marlow?” Eric asked, his hand squeezing mine a little too tightly.

  “Looks like your baby is breech. Frank breech, to be exact,” she responded, her eyes still squinty and focused. They never strayed from the ultrasound picture. When she appeared to feel confident with her image interpretations, she removed the transducer from my belly and wiped away the gel.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. Sweat beads lined my forehead and I struggled to breathe through a heightened contraction.

  “There’s nothing to worry about at all, but your baby is upside down. She must have turned last week and now her bum is where her head should be. A
vaginal delivery with a breech baby is risky so I’m going to book an OR and give you an urgent C-section. It is a very routine surgery and it will happen very quickly. My guess is that your baby will be here in the next hour or two, depending on when we can get a room. I’d call your folks or whoever else you might want to be here. This is really it.”

  Eric squeezed my hand again, but this time it felt lighter and more excited. “I’ll go call our parents and tell them to come now. You okay if I leave you for a few minutes? I can’t get reception in the hospital and need to step outside.”

  “Yes, yes . . . you go call them. I’m clearly not going anywhere.” I smiled at him, wanting to take in every moment of the milestone. In front of Dr. Marlow Eric gave me a long kiss on the lips, which made me blush with embarrassment.

  Fifteen minutes later, Eric returned along with the nurse who had been put on my charge. She introduced herself as Nurse Nancy, which I knew Eric would have found amusing in a different situation, and told us that she needed to take me — without Eric — so that I could be prepped and given my spinal. Eric would be able to join me once I was completely frozen from the waist down and the thin blue curtain that we had seen in almost every episode of Grey’s Anatomy had been set up to separate us from the blood.

  I waddled to the OR and was introduced to the on-call anesthesiologist, Dr. Tam. Nancy helped me on the operating table and told me to sit on the side and round my back so that Dr. Tam could stick the needle in my spine. She promised to stay in front of me so that I could prop my body up against her and hug her shoulders.

  “The biggest thing is that I need for you to stay completely calm and remain still,” Dr. Tam murmured from beneath her surgical mask, as though it should be easy breezy to stay perfectly still when curled over a protruding, pregnant belly and someone is about to stick a six-inch needle into your lower spine.

  “Squeeze tighter,” Nancy instructed. “It’s okay, honey, it will be over soon.”

 

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