Written by Rachel Rodman
TREATING MAKES MORE MONEY THAN CURING | Artwork by Judy Assaad
On this occasion, the receptacle is especially uncooperative. In order to complete the removal, my prying must be implacable. I insist on the required outcome; I am absolute in my focus. I persist, I persist, undistracted by a series of irrelevant sounds, until I at last succeed in extracting…
The baby.
Every baby is uniquely perfect.
But this one…
Magical.
In my arms, the minute eyelashes flutter; the fingernails are exquisite and miraculous.
In the background, there is more thrashing, more immaterial noises. But in the presence of this new wonder, I am invulnerable to them. Awe and humility imbue me.
I—unworthy I—have brought this tiny, precious spirit into the world.
“Sacred” is not a scientific word. But as an encapsulation of what I have just encountered, it is both accurate and precise.
How blessed I am.
I retain the euphoria of this experience over the rest of the morning, through two operations and a teaching seminar. By early afternoon, it remains my most prominent feeling.
After lunch, I am stopped in the hallway by one of the other attendants of that morning’s birth. A medical student, inexperienced but promising. That morning, he had been tasked with observing me and with filing the paperwork afterwards.
I like him.
His expression is sheepish. “A problem,” he whispers. He points to the top page of a medical record that I immediately recognize. Its columns define key timepoints in the delivery of that morning’s dear baby.
“A police report has been filed,” he says, continuing to whisper. “She’s alleging obstetric assault.”
She?
I have—famously—little patience for imprecision. In a medical setting, concrete nouns are essential.
I give the student a reproving look.
“The mother,” he says, enunciating.
Who?
.
Rachel Rodman (www.rachelrodman.com) writes fiction inspired by genetics and creates art inspired by evolution. Her experimental poetry has appeared in Baubles from Bones, State of Matter, The Alexander Review, and The Future Fire. Her most recent collection, Mutants and Hybrids, was published by Underland Press.