Entry #288577, added on 05-02-04 @ 11:58 pm EDT
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| My-2: Back To The Beginning | Entry #288577 |
We’re traveling back in time now. The year is not important. A young couple has arrived at Touro Hospital for the birth of their second child. It’s a hot steamy August evening in the Big Easy and the night air is so thick you can slice it with your breath. The doctor is tired. It’s Sunday night, she’s already delivered four babies and has a Ceasarean scheduled for seven a.m. Monday morning. The nurses are a little distracted with a patient in the next room, leaving the anxious couple alone for most of the labor progression. The mother-to-be is having an unusually easy time of it and finds the labor pains just slightly uncomfortable. The nervous dad-to-be is reassured by the ease of labor his wife has experienced so far. It’s nothing like the first birth three years ago; all that yelling .... all that pain.
“Honey, I’m fine. Please go call home and check on Jan. She was upset when we left the house. Just make sure she's gotten off to sleep okay,” the woman asked with reassuring eyes.
“Well, alright. If you’re sure I can’t do anything for you? I’ll make a few calls and let everyone know we’re here. I’ll be back soon. Don’t start without me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” she smiled.
Moments after he left to tend to phone calls, the unborn child decided it was time. As the mother lay alone, quietly resting in the hospital cubical, a rush of light appeared around her. The soothing glow wreathed a circle of iridescence and bathed the young woman’s aura. She realized it was time and began praying aloud. “My Lord, please bless this child.”
A nurse soon appeared to check on her progress and returned with a gurney to move her to the delivery room. Her husband, with one ear attached to a pay phone, watched from the end of the hall in disbelief. He dropped the receiver and ran over in time to yell words of encouragement. “I’m right here, Honey. Jan’s okay. She's fast asleep. I’ll be right here if you need me.” This was at a time when fathers-to-be paced the floors and obliviously waited outside the delivery room for the doctor to appear with birth news.
Without much ado, the doctor proceeded to deliver the baby. Labor went quickly and smoothly, but at the exact moment of birth, something happened. The lights in the delivery room flickered off and on for a few seconds. Not long enough to trip the generator, but just long enough to leave the room in momentary darkness. When the lights came back on, the baby thrust forth into the world, with barely a cry, but simply a coo and a sigh.
“What a beautiful baby girl,” the exhausted and grateful doctor exclaimed. “ I can’t recall the last time I’ve delivered such a perfect baby and with such ease. ”
“Doctor, I bet you say that about all your babies,” an attending nurse replied.
“Actually, no I don’t. Look at her. She’s an angel.”
When the recording nurse began filling out the documentation, she became distracted and forgot to fill out the names of the mother and the father on the birth certificate. The delivering physician signed the document and the baby girl's tiny footprints were placed on the parchment paper, and still no one entered the parent's names. No one ever noticed the absence of the mother and father’s names on the document, not even the parents themselves.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many aspects of this story are true according to two people who were there, or almost anyway. I have the original birth certificate to document it.
Which leads me to ask, “Who am I and Where did I come from?”
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© Copyright 2004 Celestial (UN: celestial at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Celestial has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
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