“You’re gonna feel a pinch and then pressure on three, ok?” I laid on my back lifelessly. I’d heard what the doctor said over the blood rushing and pounding in my ears, but I couldn’t summon the strength for a response. She slid her head out from behind my leg to make sure I was still awake. Loss of consciousness was one of the symptoms she rambled off pre-procedure like a prescription medication infomercial where all the people are smiling while doing everyday tasks in a slowed motion. Seeing me stare blankly at the ceiling, she swiveled her chair back into position, hiding again beneath the exam sheet spread between my legs. I tried to lose myself counting the dots like stars on the foam drop-tile boards above me. I made it up to around a dozen before I winced at the sharp sting.
“You’ve got it, Mama”, the sweet southern nurse said as she squeezed my hand and rubbed the inside of my forearm. The doctor slapped a gloved hand on her thigh, and sat fully up to give the nurse a dirty look above her glasses. She tsked and gave a slow head shake before descending between the stirrups once more. Without uttering a word, we both got the message loud and clear.
‘How could you possibly call her Mama when she’s just lost her baby?’
Though I knew in my heart it was a harmless, even endearing sobriquet, I understood why the doctor was upset. If I were one of the countless women she’d assist in that same room desperately trying to hold onto motherhood, that small four lettered word would land like a bullet. But on that same exam table, I laid there only desperate to make it through the next half hour.
Just then, I felt a blunt heavy pain somewhere deep inside me I didn’t know existed. I curled my toes and felt my knees begin to shake violently in revolt. I looked to the nurse for comfort and found it immediately. She sympathetically looked down at me with a familiar concern all mothers have when their children aren’t well, and mouthed silently once more while dabbing the sweat and tears rolling from my cheeks, ‘You’ve got this.’