The operating room, with its lights and arcane gadgets, was full of hurried activity. Jen was on the table, with a screen between her head and the rest of her body so she couldn't see the operation. I walked up and held her hand. The nurse (or doctor?) who stood at the head of the bed motioned towards a chair behind her and told me that I might want to sit in it because people had been known to faint while watching c-sections. I told her that I was staying right where I was. I wanted to see our daughter being born. I wanted to stand witness to the procedure. I wanted to be right next to Jen.
She was awake, but could feel nothing but a slight tugging from below her torso. She asked me what I could see. They had already started the operation, and were moving quickly. they had covered her abdomen in that yellow plastic (surgical skin? I don't know what it is called...) and had already cut into her. I could see a cross section of skin and tissue where the lower half of the incision gaped open. The doctors stretched her open wider. I saw her water break and gush out, pooling on the plastic. The doctors' hands were inside her and then there was a baby being lifted out. Just like that. They whisked the baby into the next room and I followed, knowing that Jen was in good hands. This was my first glimpse of our daughter. She didn't look premature, even though I knew she was. Her head was round, not squished like it would have been if she had been delivered naturally. She was crying - a series of gurgly little cries that indicated there was fluid in her lungs. The fluid would have been squeezed out during the process of moving through the birth canal, but hadn't been in this case since she had been lifted through a different exit. A trio of nurses pounded on her back with what looked like little rubber suction cups, and siphoned fluid from her nose and mouth. The cries began to sound less phlegmy. They finally got to a point where they were satisfied, and took her off to the neonatal intensive care unit.

She weighed 4 pounds and 9.8 ounces at birth, and measured in at 16 inches. She was born at 5:55 pm on tuesday the 25th of February. Her name is Willow. It all happened so fast. I stood there dazedly while a nurse explained to me about the table they were putting her on - heated but not an incubator, and about the room itself. There were other babies there. Some where much smaller than Willow.

So, why did this all happen? It turned out that Jen had an abrupted placenta - it had come loose in a couple of places and was bleeding, which compromised that baby's blood supply and could have been really serious for both Jen and the baby if not checked. She pointed out some time later that if this had happened early last century there was a good chance that they both would have died. As it is, we have a daughter who will be in the hospital for a few more weeks. She has a touch of jaundice, can't regulate her temperature very well, and needs to put on some weight. She spends roughly 99% of her time sleeping, and when she wakes up she looks like a little gnome. She is really good at knitting her little brow and giving the world a look of consternation - sort of the look you'd expect a gnome to bestow upon you if you ever came across one behind a rock or under a bush. It's a look that says, "I've been discovered and I don't know if I'm happy about it." When I look back at her I marvel at the fact that she was supposed to be inside Jen for another six or seven weeks. Her eyes don't really focus on anything. It's as if they are still turned inward, seeing mysteries from some previous world. I imagine that Willow has a wisdom that can't be communicated.

Maybe her middle name should be "Gnome". Somehow I don't think Jen will go for it.

In order for us to visit Willow now, we have to spend three minutes scrubbing our hands and arms in a little washroom and put on a hospital smock over our clothes. A couple of days ago the man at the next sink turned to me and said, "I know you." It turned out he was an old co-worker of mine from way back when I worked at Tower Books. My main memory of him was of the time one of the bookshelves in the back room, loaded with books, fell over on top of him. By the time I arrived on the scene, other employees had lifted it off and he was lying on his back in a pile of children's books. But that was then, and this is now. Now he weighs a hundred pounds less (this is why I didn't immediately recognize him) and had a granddaughter sleeping in the little bed next to Willow's. We also share the same first name.

I wore a shirt to the hospital yesterday that depicted a pair of smoker's lungs - a photo of real, blackish, diseased lungs with the caption "smoking is cool!" underneath. I figured it would go over well with the hospital staff. It did. On the way out a rather humorous thing occured. A man, in an attempt to cadge a cigarette, asked if I smoked. Some people's powers of observation are a little... what is the word I'm looking for... absent.

Jen came home today. She is really unhappy over the fact that Willow is still in the hospital. So am I, of course, but Jen is really feeling it. We're going to spend as much time there as possible, which isn't as much time as we would like. The other kids make that difficult. My jobs make that difficult. We are slightly consoled by the fact that Willow spends most of her time sleeping. She is not crying and searching for us. She is snoozing in her warm little bed. That actually sounds like a good idea...

cds I listened to while thinking about Willow: Nurse With Wound (strangely enough, there is a nurse with a wound in the maternity ward - she has a bandage over one of her eyes) "A missing sense" (if the nurse had bandages over both of her eyes, she would indeed be missing a sense...), Love is Colder Than Death "Atopos", Low "Dinosaur Act", "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me", and "Secret Name", Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares "A Cathedral Concert", Philippe Eidel and Arnaud Devos/Les Voix Bulgares de L'ensemble Radio Sofia "Balkan", Pearls Before Swine "Balaklava", Bee and Flower "What's Mine is Yours", and Low & Springheel Jack "Bombscare"

now: Unblocked disc 2: From the Danube Through the Carpathians