'All three are there,' she said simply. 'Nice to know you're checking every detail.' David let go a relieved breath. His hand squeezed firmly the weak one it held. He was not sure what the danger was, but he knew that three veins was good, two veins bad. Karen had not even noticed the exchange. She gazed lovingly, exhaustedly, joyfully, at the little person on her stomach.
'You may give her a drink if you wish.' Nurse Dyer smiled with a warm tenderness. Carefully, she helped Karen lift the tiny bundle to her left breast, showing her the way to cradle the head and neck. Karen held the child in one arm. David stuffed pillows behind her to raise her into a sitting position. Dyer cleaned the new mother's nipple, which Karen offered to the baby's cheek. Feeling the stimulation, the tiny light blond head rotated, sensitive lips searching. In a matter of seconds, her mouth found a new source of nourishment and happily began to feed. The room fell silent for a moment.
'Pardon the intrusion,' Dr. Fletcher said, picking up a hyst-eroscope. 'As I suspected, I've got some cleaning up to do. Don't mind me.' She took only a few moments to examine Karen and remove a few bits of tissue that had remained at the surgical attachment points of the transplant operation. Karen hardly noticed. David pulled a Canon camera from beneath his hospital garb and shot half the roll. After a few minutes, Dyer announced that nursing time was up and that the baby needed to be cleaned. She poured an inch or two of tepid water into a bright yellow tub and placed it on the table next to the bed. Urging David to observe carefully, she inserted a finger alongside Karen's nipple to break the baby's suction. The baby began to cry, jerking her arms and legs, her eyes tightly shut. With a sponge almost as big as the baby, Nurse Dyer softly dabbed away the blood, leaving just enough of the waxy coat-ing of vernix to keep the newborn's skin from drying out.
'Now,' the nurse announced, patting the child dry with a bright white towel, 'you both need a rest, and so does she.' She put the baby in a Plexiglas tray under a warming lamp. David watched Nurse Dyer lay a small green bottle of oxy-gen next to the baby, a tiny little mask placed about two inches away from her ruddy, drowsy face. 'Where's she going?'
'They'll both be moved to the postpartum room. They need to sleep, and so do you. Kiss your wife good night and go home and rest.'
He looked at Dr. Fletcher. She nodded in agreement.
'Sweetheart?' he said. 'Will you be all right?'
Karen Chandler smiled at her husband. Tears of joy began to well up in her soft grey eyes. Her chestnut hair, wet with sweat, hung in near-black tangles across the pillow. Blood smeared her abdomen, her belly still large and soft from the ordeal.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
David stretched across the bed to hold her for a moment. They wept those misty-eyed tears that survivors of great ad-ventures weep. They murmured the phrases new parents speak that seem to them so momentous and emotional at the time.
'We have a baby,' she said.
'A daughter,' he said.
'She's beautiful.'
'So are you, my love.'
Nurse Dyer wheeled the baby out of the room. The little one had already fallen asleep.
'Where-?' David began.
Fletcher removed her mask and goggles. 'She'll share the room with her mom but be accessible to the nurses so that Karen can get some sleep.'
David kissed his wife with warm, deep love. 'Sleep well, darling. I'll be back as soon as I can.'
'Rest, David. We'll be all right.'
They embraced again. Nurse Dyer returned with a gurney. David helped his wife shift over to it. A last kiss and she rolled away through the door, Dyer pushing gently.
David Chandler watched his wife disappear into the post-partum wing. A hand slapped him on the back with weary heartiness.
'Congratulations, Dad.' Dr. Fletcher smiled. Her eyes seemed to hold back a deeper emotion than she revealed in the friendly gesture. 'She's a beautiful baby.'
He nodded, then smiled widely. 'She is. They both are. We've waited so long for this.'
'Have you got a name for her?'
