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Full-Time Dads;
The Magazine for Caregiver Fathers
Issue 23
"The head's out!"
These first three words are cut off
like oxygen to my nearly-born
child's face, the umbilical cord wrapped
jealously around the tiny neck,
choking us both into stoic silence.
Only the doctor speaks: "Dad, you
won't be able to cut the cord this time."
His steady, rhythmic voice is a stabilizing
hand to my teetering emotions.
My wife's voice is mute,
but her wide-stretched, tired eyes
cry out for an explanation. All I can do
is plaster myself a soothing, porcelain face,
disguise my capsizing spirits and say,
"Everything's fine." I watch my child's
soft spot, partially disguised by a black
tangle of hair, became a darker and darker
blue, like the deepest part of a lake which,
when divided into, is so deep and cold
that it's hard to get back to the surface.
In the warm corner of the birthing room,
the fetal heart monitor prays with me:
wish a wish a wish a wish I wish
this baby'd come right now. "No.
Don't push yet," commands the doctor.
My wife bites an ever deepening valley
into her lip as she squeezes my hand harder,
cutting off the circulation to my fingertips,
turning them empathetic blue.
I long for her to squeeze harder as I watch
the doctor's hands work mystically,
instinctively, faster than I can breathe:
-two clamps-a stretched cord-
a cut-no sound-(I strain for any sound)-
a sudden turn of tiny shoulders-
"Push!" he says, and her teeth dig deeper
into the baby soft pink of her lip
as the anxious blue child rushes out
like uncontained enthusiams to greet
the anticipating hands of the doctor.
Immediately, my daughter's darkened
body washes pink. Her awakened,
raspy cry smooths over my anxiety
like silken hands on my leather fingers.
Still holding my wife's hand, we begin
breathing slow sighs of relief.
We watch our little girl's glassy eyes
opening,m her fingers searching.
In two minutes, only her fingers and toes
show any hint of blue as she breathes
on my wife's exhausted chest.
I watch chest and child rise and fall
in unison like the song of one
strong heart beat. After a moment,
I place my cool, still-trembling hand
on my daughter's warm back, and
my breathing quietly joins their harmony.
Copyright 1996 Paul Beckermann
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