To the One I Loved

Chapter Thirty-Five: Procedure pt.2

Nina's POV:

Alex's words kind of calmed me down, but I was now laying in the hospital bed, with him sitting at the foot. I had gotten into the hospital gown Dr. Sullivan gave me, and was waiting for them to be ready to start the procedure. "I wish I had just one more letter for you," I say, "So you could read it and calm me down. You know I love the sound of your voice." He laughs.

"Well, I love the sound of your voice even more," he replies. And I think that maybe he loves it so much because he wants to cherish it, before it dies. I smile at him, despite myself wanting to cry. I hate to upset him, but sometimes I can't help the true fact that this is all happening. I didn't even know what to say back to him, but praise Jesus that Dr. Sullivan just busted through the door.

"Alright, Nina," she says, "You ready to get this over with?" She asks. I nod. Oh boy, am I ready to get this over with. To let it be done. To let Alex and I have this baby and raise it in peace. "Okay, well follow me." She gestures with her clipboard, for me to follow her. I almost jump out of the hospital bed, forgettign that I'm eight months and three weeks pregnant. And that my stomach alone weighs about thirty pounds, even though that part was an exaggeration.

Alex and I follow Dr. Sullivan down a hallway and into a huge room. It has a metal table, with a very thin matress and another hospital bed, a movable one with wheels on the bottom, and heart monitors and doctor's tools everywhere. There's two women nurse in the room. "Hi," one of them says. I wave to her. I just really don't feel like speaking right now, or for the next 15 hours. Then my parents walk in.

"Hey, Nina, honey," my mom says, "You can do this, okay? Your dad and I will be right outside." She nods her head, questioningly, and I nod back, answeringly. Then my dad gives me a side hug, and they exit. Dr. Sullivan grabs another blue hospital gown off of a rack and hands it to Alex.

"You're going to need to slip that over your clothes," she says. He nods, and literally just slips it on. So graceful. Another doctor walks in. Man. How many doctors do we need for one procedure? Although there are technically only two doctors and two nurses.

"Alright," the male doctor, who just walked in, said, "I'm Dr. Jensen. I'll be helping Dr. Sullivan perform the birth procedure, and the tumor removal surgery. Just to let you know, we may not be able to actually remove the tumor, but we can do what we can to get the baby out, safely."

"And what about Nina?" Alexs asks, "Are you going to make things safely for her?" Woah, he just blew up, out of nowhere. I don't know what his problem was, but it just fell out of thin air. I whisper his name, and reach for his hand. "Sorry," he says, "I'm just nervous...for you." I nod.

"It's okay, it's okay. Just calm down," I laugh the last part. He nods and sighs deeply and heavily. And then he's calm again. "Alright," I say. Then, "Let's get this over with."

"Okay," Dr. Sullivan says. One of the nurses roll over this big tank with four tube things at the top. The other nurse hands her an oxygen mask conncected with a tube. She plugs the other end of that tube into the plugged tube on top of the tank. "We don't do this for pregnant women, but since we are performing two procedures at once, we're going to have to give you just a little bit of laughy gas and put you under, okay?" I nod, and the nurse places the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. "Just breath in with your nose, okay?"

And I did as Dr. Sullivan said. I felt Alex grab my hand, and I could feel myself start to go under. I closed my eyes and imagined I was flying. But then there was an apple floating in the air, and a bird ran into the apple and fell dead, and for some weird reason, it was so hilarious. And I couldn't stop laughing because a bird fell out of the sky.

The only real thing I feel right now is Alex's hand, and the sharpness of a C-section. I feel an emptiness in my stomach. I feel something unload, like I just threw up all of my meals in the past week and suddenly weighed 30 pounds less. And then I can tell, the laughy gas starts to wear off, because now, I'm crying. I open my eyes. "Is the baby here?" I asked. Then I laughed again, but I knew that wasn't even funny. I didn't even want to laugh, so I don't know why I did.