A Mother's Dilemna Part 2

The sudden click of the door lock contradicted the otherwise silent room. I could have mistaken it to be to have been in a dead-silent graveyard, had it not been for my heart bumping against my chest, informing me of the graveness of my decision and the chills going down my spine. I am generally not a very nervous person, but right now, at this moment, I am fearful of the man behind the half closed door: not because my life is depended in his hands, but because my child’s is did. The nurse had only opened the door enough for her slim figure to pass by, and as she stood discussing my reports with the man in white, I stood outside contemplating whether to slide it further right and step inside, or wait for her to usher me in when they feel it is time. I looked down at my waltz watch, to see it reading 12:30. Not bad, I was called in only after waiting for twenty minutes of waiting, after the screening. But twenty minutes was not enough to make the decision, certainly not. One second. What was that? Suddenly, I felt like my uterus was getting sucked in from the inside. Oh Lord, never have I felt such an intense pain. Cramps! Yes, that was it! I was getting cramps in my stomach. I was warned about these sudden pains, particularly called contractions, to occur in the last trimester. But I wasn’t warned that the pain would be so intense that my knees would go weak under my weight, and I would find myself holding the door frame for support. But before my knees touched the ground, the pain disappeared, as if it came like a sudden storm on a clear day, and went away just as suddenly. I straightened myself up, quickly checking the door frames in case I left behind nail marks. Self-assured that no remains of my sudden cramp outside the doctor’s door remained, I regained my position, waiting for the door to slide open.

After what seemed like an eternity, the door started sliding from the other side, to fully reveal the ghost white painted walls, with pictures of young mothers cuddling their newly born, and chubby babies crawling on a white rugs. The sudden whiff of air-conditioned air on my face, and the smiles on the pictures got me feeling like my head was just hit by a million volt lightning. To think, that I was so close to feeling the same joy those women hanging on the doctor’s walls felt, and yet so far from it. How dare they get to be happy, while I am struggling between a life or death situation here? 

“Mrs. Perez, kindly take a seat”. Right! I am not here to complain or curse the people who are happy! What was I even thinking? I am here to fight for my child’s life, and I shall fight for it with all my might I shall! 

“Firstly, kindly tell me the amount of pain you are feeling right now”, the doctor’s breathy voice said, while his bony index finger pointed to a chart with eleven emotive faces drawn on it, from a yellow smiling face with zero written under it, to a green face, in much obvious agony, with a ten under it. Ten! My pain was definitely a ten. I hadn’t been able to eat anything in the last eighteen hours, and the stagnant sharp pain was simply getting stronger and stronger. But….. But what if he decides to snatch my baby from me and this world, if I say ten? No, no, I need to slide my finger from the ten to a six. Too much sliding? Okay, seven. Yes, this is fine. My finger stopped on the seven, and I looked up at the doctor with a smile, in an attempt to convince him the unsure sliding of my finger on his emotive scale was due to my confusion, and not because I was lying. “Alright, let’s say that your level of pain is actually a seven. Ma’am, please understand that I am here to help you. Let me first explain your condition. We have detected a stone in your gall bladder. Please, do not be alarmed. This is fairly common in expecting mothers. Usually, if it is detected in the first trimester, we do not advice for surgery due to the high chances of miscarriage, and we try to delay the surgery till the mother is in the second trimester. However, you are in the third trimester already, and to do a surgery now is extremely risky, and my team was going to suggest that we complete the procedure in the postpartum period. The problem that has arisen now, is that no food is reaching the fetus, since the patient is throwing up as a result of the stone in the gall bladder. Moreover, we are unable to give the patient high dosed pain killers, in worry of the adverse effect it could have on the fetus.”

The third person address in the last two sentences made me more fully aware of my parents’ presence behind me. They had both come into the room, and were now standing directly behind me, my dad supporting the weight of my mother on his lean body. Her eyes were cotton-candy colored and puffed up. Oh good Lord! Similar to how I am trying to save my daughter, they are also trying to save their daughter. In a way, they are in a direr situation than I am right now, it is not choosing between self and child, it is choosing between child and grandchild. I was asking them to sacrifice their daughter for my …. After taking one long breath, the doctor continued, cutting off my chain of thoughts. 

“In this situation, due to the numerous complications, we will only be able to save either the patient, or the fetus. If we choose the fetus, then surgery cannot be done at the moment, and she will have to endure the pain of the stone in the gall bladder. But to save the fetus is also very risky, because the mother is not able to eat properly, and at this rate, the fetus will get starved. As a doctor, my experience tells me that it is in the best interest for everyone for us to terminate the growth of the fetus at this stage.” 
The doctor’s monotonous speech was nothing new to me. This was the third doctor that we were vising, and the advices have all been identical. However, this time, it is different. He was the most qualified doctor in the country, and it was my parents’ insistence that if any surgery has to be performed, it shall be by his hands only. I think, I am sure of two thing. Firstly, I am not killing my daughter and secondly, I am not letting her become a doctor, no matter what. I do not think that my baby girl will be able to speak so monotonously and emotionlessly about such procedures. Why! What he was suggesting was pure murder! And he advised it so effortlessly! How could he do that? How? Does it mean nothing to him? In his words, it was “fairly common” for pregnant women to experience such a scenario, but is it also “fairly common” for him to murder babies? Whatever is the case, I shall, under no situation, no matter how dire it is, allow for any such action to be taken.