Devonne Brown

The first time I ever felt like a grown up was on the Monday before the surgeon told me the boys were coming Wednesday at 9:00 a.m.

“Not to worry,” said the husband, “our lifestyle won’t change much.” The baby beds hadn’t been bought, the nursery hadn’t been painted. He said he’d see to that. 

The curtains were made and hung. The quilts were made for their beds. I’d had sweaters knitted, booties bought, diapers at the ready, even the sock monkeys had been knitted. I’d seen to that.

A nurse came to the house to give me some shots to open their lungs later that afternoon or the boys would have been born that day. Yep, I was grown up and living with Peter Pan.

He dropped me off at the hospital on Tuesday at 3 and I didn’t see him again until 9:15 Wednesday morning. I was already on the operating table with a big needle in my back and no feeling from the waist down.

I had an army of support. I wasn’t alone at all because it was a teaching hospital. There were about 50 thankful students crammed into the surgical theatre, grateful for the opportunity to watch a geriatric twin cesarean surgery and tubal amputation. I wish I could have served them snacks. They were so excited. Each baby had a team of doctors, midwives, specialists, and countless other professionals. It was a British circus in scrubs, everybody got to watch the show but me. I thought it was very unfair, but it was a happy crowd, so the energy made it worthwhile. 

Everybody glared at the husband when he burst through the double doors with his story of the bus that broke down  in front of him on the roundabout. I had too many drugs in my system to glare or care. When I told him his tale was ridiculous, my army laughed and tittered. He turned red, didn’t laugh, and acted like a concerned, albeit late husband, unwashed.

 The anesthetist told me the combination of drugs was sort of like cocaine, heroine, morphine, and aspirin on steroids. Whatever they were, they made the husband’s tales of woe swirl into the blood I’d lost in the surgery and flow through the grate on the floor. I just wanted him to finish the nursery.  

He was right about one thing, his lifestyle didn’t change much.