I got to the room, expecting to see the baby, but instead was transferred to my bed and told I wouldn't be able to get up again for 24 hours. The nurses were totally focused on me: on hooking up my IV, getting in my antibiotics, giving me shoots for circulation. The baby was nowhere in sight: the over efficient nursery had taken him in and we would only see him over the next four days as and when we asked for him.
We all breathed a sigh of relief as the baby was wheeled in; wrapped tightly in a hospital blanket because we didn't have the presence of mind to hand over any of the clothes we had brought in our well prepared and packed bags. He still had no name that we could both agree on either so the debate continued.
"When they first showed him to me, the name that popped into my head was Magnus," I said. This was one of the earliest names we had considered and it was fitting because the child was nearly 8 pounds.
"Where were you hiding that child?" the doctor asked me when she came to check up on me. I shook my head at her. She had seen me through all my pre-natal care and at 45 pounds heavier than before pregnancy, I certainly hadn't felt I was hiding anything in the last few months.
I was ready to get him on the breast and give it go: but for the next six hours he didn't wake up. And we all took advantage and went to bed as well. There was no sound in the room from 12pm until much later in the day, except that of nurses coming to change out my IV bag every two hours or my catheter.
It was at that moment I realized how traumatic the past 72 hours had been for everybody. The baby's tiny cries every hour or so, as though he were having nightmares or reliving the experience of trying to get out without being able to, were confirmation that we had all just survived a harrowing journey to life.
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