Different Circles

“Oh ... right, of course,” she said. She bent to her computer and went to work. A minute later, Laura had an armband on her wrist and Jake and Celia both had visitor stickers with their names and Laura’s name stuck to their shirts. A moment after that, one of the side doors opened and a middle-aged nurse in blue scrubs came through. She was pushing an empty wheelchair.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley?” she asked.

“Yes,” Laura said.

“I’m Arlene, one of the L&D nurses. I’m going to get you triaged and see how you’re doing.”

She insisted that Laura sit in the wheelchair even though Laura insisted she was perfectly capable of walking.

“It’s hospital policy,” Arlene said simply. “We don’t want you falling down.”

“A little while ago I walked to the back of an airplane that was bouncing around like a moth on a porch light,” Laura told her. “I didn’t fall then.”

“You were in an airplane?” Arlene asked, her eyebrows coming up.

“That’s right,” Jake said. “Two and a half hours ago we were in Coos Bay, Oregon. We flew down here when labor started. It was a bit of a bumpy ride for the first part of the flight.”

The nurse was now looking at them as if they were insane. “You flew down from Oregon in the middle of the night while you were in labor?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Laura told her. “That was our plan all along. It worked out.”

“Wow,” Arlene whispered. “Anyway, as I was saying, it’s hospital policy that you sit in the chair. If you would just take a seat?”

Laura took a seat. She was wheeled back through a secured entrance and into a hallway, Jake and Celia trailing behind. From there, she was put in a room labeled TRIAGE. The triage room had two gurneys in it separated by a curtain. Monitoring equipment filled the back wall. Arlene directed Laura to sit on the left gurney (the right one was unoccupied currently). She then took her temperature, hooked her up to a blood pressure cuff and a pulse oximeter, and then asked her a few questions about when her labor pains started, what they felt like, if they had been timing them, how far apart they were. Laura answered everything and Celia even provided Arlene with her paper record of the contraction times and duration. Arlene was impressed with the document.

“Well, well,” she said. “It looks like you went from twelve minutes to nine over the past few hours. Has your water broke?”

“Not yet,” Laura said.

“And have you lost your mucous plug?”

“A few days ago,” Laura replied.

“Very good,” Arlene said. “We need to see how advanced your labor is. I’ll need you to undress completely and put on one of our gowns. After that, I’ll hook you up to the monitor and do an internal exam to see how dilated you are.”

“Wonderful,” Laura said with a frown. She reached for her blouse and began undoing the buttons.

Arlene looked over at Celia. So far she had given no indication that she knew who Celia was. “What is your relationship to Mrs. Kingsley?” she asked.

“We’re good friends,” Celia told her.

“My best friend,” Laura put in.

“That’s right,” Celia said with a smile. “Best friends.”

“Okay then,” Arlene said. “Well, she’s about to disrobe and then have me put my hand up inside of her vagina. If either of you are uncomfortable being in each other’s presence while that happens, you might want to step out of the room for a little bit.”

“It’s all right,” Laura said. “She’s seen me naked before.”

“I see,” Arlene said slowly.

“I had to help her pee in the airplane,” Celia said.

“I see,” Arlene said again. “In that case, here’s your gown. I’ll give you a few minutes to disrobe.”

Laura took her clothes off (except for her socks) and put on the gown. She laid down on the gurney while Jake and Celia sat in the chairs next to it. Arlene returned a few minutes later carrying a stretchy band with several round devices attached to it and wires coming from the devices.

“This is the CTG,” Arlene explained. “It straps around your belly and tells us when you’re having a contraction and gives a constant readout of the baby’s heart rate. Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a girl,” Laura said.

“Have you picked a name yet?”

“Cadence,” Laura said. “Her name is Cadence.”

“That’s a pretty name,” Arlene said, though her tone suggested that she always said something like that, no matter what name a mother told her. Adolf? That’s a good solid name. Saddam? I like the sound of that!

“We think so,” Jake said.

She rucked up Laura’s gown and installed the device by wrapping it around her belly. She then fiddled with the positioning a bit while staring at the monitor screen on the wall behind Laura’s head. Finally, she seemed to like what she saw.

“Baby looks good,” she said. “Fetal heartrate is one-forty-two right now, right where it should be. Let me know the next time you feel a contraction so I can see if it correlates with the monitor.”

“Will do,” Laura said.