At thirty-eight weeks, Wendy’s doctor recommended a scheduled C-section. The gestational diabetes had complicated timing, and Paige’s measurements suggested waiting for spontaneous labor might not be wise. Wendy nodded during the explanation like she was fine. Then she got into the car afterward, closed the passenger door, and stared out the windshield while Mitchell started the engine and waited.
“I’m scared,” she whispered finally.
Mitchell unbuckled, leaned across the console, and kissed her forehead. “Of course you are. You still get to do it scared.”
She did.
The morning of the surgery, the hospital lights were too bright and the air too cold and everything smelled like antiseptic and old panic. Nurses moved efficiently around her. Mitchell wore blue scrubs over his clothes and tried to look steady enough for both of them. Wendy signed forms with hands that did not feel entirely hers. Then there was the operating room, the drape, the pressure that was not pain until suddenly it was too close to pain to define, the strange knowledge of being cut open while still awake enough to know it was happening.
Then there was a cry.
A real cry. Sharp, indignant, furious at the indignity of air.