random etchings

terror

his birthday present was terror
as his wife paled with blood loss
and went silent
as the doctor
rushed him from the delivery room
and others rushed in
in response to a coded message
he didn't understand,
as minutes passed with
impossible swiftness and
ineffectual slowness,
as a baby's cry finally broke
through the endless
mechanical white noise
as he waited (a long, long, eternal
half hour) not knowing,
until the clock struck midnight
and they finally let him back
to see them, the baby boy
who would share his birthday,
and his wife, still. Pale and still.

line count: 21
Prompt: SCARIEST BIRTHDAY EVER

Author's note ▶︎

This is based on two family stories. The first is my father's story about when my youngest sister was born. Mama was forty at the time, and there were complications with the delivery. She was experiencing something when the placenta is not attached properly so she was hemorrhaging and in order to save both of them, she was given an emergency c-section. The second is, a few years ago, my brother and his wife were expecting. I was there to help with the rest of the children, and when the baby was born there were complications (I don't know all the details, but I believe it involved the baby not presented properly) and she had to have an emergency c-section.

Both mothers lived. Both babies lived (my nephew is now almost three) but the recovery was difficult for both women. And there was nothing either man could do.

No, it didn't involve birthdays or death, but this was the scariest situation that I remember.