Hear What They See

Monday, February 05, 2007

Alarming

We head home from the hospital on Monday evening. We've been in the hospital 5 days. I question how we will handle a new, fussy baby on our own with no nurses to come rescue us at 3:00 a.m. when Gretchen would wail. My milk hasn't come in yet, Gretchen has been bottle-fed in the hospital, I'm uncertain about my abilities as a mother and still sore from the surgery. We stop at the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions for pain. Gretchen is snapped into her new carseat, sleeping peacefully in the back seat. I can't sit back there with her because the car is loaded to the gills with everything we have to bring home from the hospital.

Dave parks at the pharmacy. "I'll be right back," he says. "Do we need anything else?" No, I shake my head. He goes inside and I hear the doors lock as he clicks his key fob to lock the doors of the Volvo.

I call my parents on my cell. "Yeah, we're heading home. We're at the pharmacy. We'll be home in about 15 minutes." Gretchen is snoring softly in the backseat.

Staring out the windshield, it's strange to be out of the hospital. We have been holed up in our hospital room, separated from the world, a threesome. Dave has slept on a fold out bed in a room the size of a brrom closet. I forced myself to walk around the hallways the last 3 days, shuffling in my marshmellow slip-on tennies, my ankles and feet still tight and swollen. I have gotten to know all the nurses, each of their personalities and strengths, each of them a gift. Dave is overwhelmed by their mothering instincts, how good each of them is in her own way with the babies.

In the backseat I hear a gurgle and a choking sound. I can't see the baby because carseats have to be rear-facing. I open my door. A car alarm whoops into action. I'm confused. It sounds like it's coming from the Volvo. Gretchen starts to scream in tha back seat. The car alarms is coming from the Volvo. I can't think. Why is the alram going off? Of course, Dave locked it with the key fob. The alarm is engaged. Shit. The baby cries louder. I look for my purse. It's nowhere. I remember Dave telling me he put in the trunk. Where the extra set of Volvo keys are. People stare at the Volvo. They stare at me, one leg in, one leg out of the car. I stand up. My incision burns, I grab my belly. Shit! I hit the unlock button on the door. It doesn't work. Gretchen cries and screams in the back seat. I can't reach her! The button to unlock the back door, it's too far back, I can't reach. My incision burns as I strain against the front seat, reaching for Gretchen.

Tears well in my eyes. The baby screams. People stare, but don't offer help. A man walks to his truck and I approach him. "Please," I say, "can you help me? My baby, I can't reach my baby!" I sound hysterical even to my own ears. The man looks at the Volvo with its flashing lights, open doors and screaming bay, shakes his head, mumbles something, gets in his truck. Desperation waves over me like a lost cause. A woman walks by, looks askance at me, the Volvo with it's flashing lights and alarming screech. I walk towards her, holding my belly. "Please help me." Tears clog my voice, I feel like I'm on Candid Camera. She hesitates. "Please." I'm begging. "I just had a baby, we just got released from the hospital. I had a C-section. I can't reach her. My husband's in the store, I can't reach my baby." I don't know what to say about why the car alarm is going off so I say nothing. She's stopped walking but looks like she might shake her head and keep going. "PLEASE!" I say. I'm crying.

She walks over, tentative. "The baby's in the back seat but the door won't unlock since the alarm got engaged. I can't turn it off. I can't unlock the door, I can't reach." I babble, afraid she'll walk away and leave me.

"OK, it's ok," she says. The car alarm bleats at us. I can't think. Is the baby ok? I'm embarrassed. Why the hell did Dave lock the door? My incision feels like a hot poker got jabbed into it. The woman reaches back, straining, unlocks the back door. She reaches over and unlocks my side too. We both reach for the baby. Gretchen is screaming. Neither of us knows how to remove the carseat. "Do you have a bottle?" the woman asks. Yes. That's right, the nurse opened a bottle of formula for us before we left the hospital. It's on the dash. The woman retrieves it and stuffs it in Gretchen's mouth. She stops crying.

Dave walks back to the car right then, eyes wide, a look of - Confusion? Shock? Disbelief? - on his face. "Honey?" he says to me. "What's going on?"

And that was Gretchen's first introduction to the world.

POSTSCRIPT: I went back to the pharmacy 2 weeks later. Found out that is where the woman works who helped us. Her name is Rose. I took Gretchen by for her to have a peek at her in less chaotic circumstances. She gave me a hug, cooed at Gretchen. In this day and age people are never sure if they should stop and help. Thank God she did. I told her so.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 11:56 PM