“No, but in my experience, the chances are high once you’ve had three of the same.”
We enter the room, which has a much calmer atmosphere than the mood of resistance Alicia’s had. There’s whale music, the smell of lavender in the air and a very attentive husband rubbing Kim’s back.
I introduce myself quietly. Kim has two midwives helping her onto her hands and knees. It’s time to push. Again, I can feel the tension in the room rising and rising as the baby gets closer to being born. Kim is pushing like a champ, keeping each one going for the entire length of her contractions. I’ve read about the statistics on a baby’s sex before. Lucy’s right, once you have three babies of the same sex, chances are you’ll continue producing children of the same sex.
“One final push, my love,” one of the midwives bellows. With a roar Kim digs in and the head is out. A few minutes later the body follows.
“It’s a boy,” the midwife says, her voice hollow. She’s gone white. The other midwife, the quieter one, takes the baby over to the side of the room. He’s crying mightily, has a good color. He looks for all intents and purposes like a perfectly healthy baby boy.
“What?” Kim asks, groggy from the gas and air and pain and shock. “She can’t be a boy. We have girls.”
“It’s a boy, sweetheart,” the midwife says. I turn away as the midwife and Kim work together through the final stages of labor, delivering the placenta. I feel like I’m intruding now. This is too private. I’m watching the beginnings of a funeral.
“Where’s the pediatric team?” I ask Lucy quietly.
“No point,” Lucy whispers. “If he’s immune he’ll live, if he’s not he’ll die. Peds is focusing on treating the girls and immune boys with non-Plague issues now.”
The ruthlessness of this is gutting in the context of a maternity unit. I’m so used to the medical care and attention devoted to newborn babies that it jars, but this is reality now. There’s nothing to be gained from wasting precious time, needles, cannulas, saline and steroids on a baby destined to die in a few days. Kim isn’t crying. She looks shell-shocked and deathly pale. The doctor part of my brain wants to check that she’s not hemorrhaging but I suspect it’s the plain horror of having given birth to a baby who will almost certainly die in days, if not hours. There’s an absence of something and I’m trying to work out what it is, casting my mind back to my own labors, and then I realize. Reassurance. When I gave birth, I was constantly being reassured during and after that everything was going to be okay. “You’ll heal up just fine.” “Gorgeous wee boy you’ve got there.” “The first few nights are the hardest, then you’ll find a rhythm.” There’s no reassurance here. There’s nothing anyone can say.
Lucy and I leave the delivery room and I take a deep breath.
“It’s a horrible environment to be in, isn’t it?” she says.
I nod in agreement. “I honestly don’t know how you’ve been doing this for months. I’m emotionally exhausted and I’ve been here less than two hours.”
“This isn’t why I became a midwife.” Lucy’s eyes are filled with tears and I have a maternal urge to hug her and rub her back. “We spend hours with these women encouraging them to basically rip their bodies apart for the promise of a baby at the end, and for what? To have their hearts broken in a few hours? I can’t do it anymore. I’ve applied to become a general practice nurse.”
I nod again. There’s nothing I can say. Eventually I just mutter, “I understand.” I spend the next two days with Lucy repeating the roller coaster of elation and horror of working in a labor ward during the Plague. I see four more girls born and five boys. At the end of my third day I’m desperate to go home. I cannot see one more woman’s face cave in at the prospect of a dead baby. These midwives are made of sterner stuff than I.