August 17
Today was the day.
The books all say that most people wait a nice safe eight weeks before seeking out a physician. But, with a stomach that looks at least three months “gone” (as the women of the town put it) and a heck of a stomach-ache to boot, who am I to stand on tradition?
And about this wonder-working specialist I wanted, this maternity magician, this prestidigitator of the delivery rooms who would bring Jake into the world hale and hearty while I slept in peace, whose customers were all movie stars, yet whose charges were all reasonable, and who had never lost a m~ther’s figure-there I had a gem of an idea. No long labored search for me, no Stanley and Livingstone business through the trackless wastes of Physicians’ Buildings. No relying, either, on the advice of gals with only one birth to their experience, or on the advice of friends with only one doctor to theirs. I’m going to the biggest and shiniest hospital in New York City, and ask the advice of the Superintendent who knows all about hundreds of doctors and thousands of babies.
Later
The hospital didn’t look like a hospital; it didn’t even smell like a hospital. It was more like a hotel with a convention meeting in the lobby. “Visiting hours” I noted, so I’m just another visitor.
The brave hotel face the hospital was putting on slipped a little, however, when a new mother came by followed by a beaming new father, a “bellboy” with bags, mountains of flowers, stuffed pink animals, baby blankets, and a miniature pink potty, and a nurse gingerly carrying a roll of pink blankets.
The desk clerk beamed after them-a very hushed little man practically hidden behind a colossal counter that was equipped with all the paraphernalia of hotels, including register and a pigeonholed mail backdrop.
The hushed little man repeated “Hospital superintendent?” after me and said: “He’s a very busy man, Miss, what do you want of him?”
I mumbled something about advice on selecting an obstetrician.
Then, suddenly breaking his whispering vows, the little man bellowed: “Obstetrician? Why didn’t you say so? He’s over there.”
It was like a public address system and it must have penetrated the furthest recesses of the most hushed and distant visitor. I was blown across the walnut-paneled lobby to a business-like desk with a business-like girl behind it. She was the girl who recommended doctors to girls who had brilliant ideas like mine.
“Sure, we do it every day!” she told me. “Thousands of women ask our advice about choosing their doctor.” She picked a name out of a hat. “Now, how about -”
I was going to give her an argument but there was that pain, and that bulge, and that long ride back to my little house on the river. So I meekly followed her through tiled corridors, waited in paneled waiting rooms, gave my name and my “disease” to very bored clerks, and was finally ushered into an office that must have been shipped in one lot from Hollywood. There, at a huge desk that was all glistening white and glittering chromium, sat a red-faced young man in an austere white gown and a bedside manner that was a nice blend of disinterest and commiseration.
So this was the end of the trail. “Dr. Kildare, I presume,” I murmured inaudibly and my quarry turned on me a smile as bright as his desk.
“Sit down, won’t you?” He picked up Form No. 20-786 ByZ 47, unclipped a fountain pen from a breast pocket filled with a neat row of pens, pencils, thermometers, and stethoscope ends, and swung upright in his swivel chair. “First, your name, please.”
He seemed a little young to me. “Look,” I said, edging toward the door, “are you married?”
The swivel chair rocked upright. “Well, uh - yes!”
“Do you have any children?”
“Yes.” His bedside manner was coming undone. “Now that’s what 1 was getting at.” 1 mentally rubbed my hands together. “Who was your wife’s doctor, Doctor?”
“I was my wife’s doctor’s wife’s doctor.”
Maybe he wasn’t so young. 1 advanced gingerly and sat down on the edge of the chair. Thinning hair, I noted. Maybe that ruddy, just-off-the-rowing-team face had misled me.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.” He refastened his bedside manner.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” 1 said mechanically but when 1 saw him enter the figures on that magnificent form I thought I’d better be careful. “I’m really twenty •. six,” I corrected. “Look, have you a lot of experience? Do you have any movie stars among your patients-I mean do you guarantee that 1 get my figure back?”
The doctor was getting his second wind. “That’s rather up to you.”
“My skin isn’t as clear as it was two weeks ago.
It looks bumpy.”
“Yes, that sometimes happens to brunettes.”
Here was a man of aplomb, fearless, unhurried, without nerves. “Occasionally,” he amplified, “dark blotches appear over the nose or under the eyes. It’s called the mask of pregnancy.”
“Let’s get back to you,” I said. “Are you modern?”
The chair teetered slightly.
“What I mean is,” I rushed on, “are you painless like the stories I’ve read? Do I just go to sleep and, bingo, there’s Jake-or are you one of those doctors who believe in the old-fashioned business of pain and suffering?”
He unclipped another fountain pen and wrote at great length in red ink. My question must have tipped him off to something pretty significant. When he was through with the red ink, he said, “We’ll make you as comfortable as possible.” But it was only routine; his heart wasn’t in it.
This didn’t sound so promising. But it occurred to me that having a baby isn’t something you can change your mind about, and, anyway, there was that bulge and that ache. So I let the doctor have his innings and told all about my great-aunt’s diabetes; the history of my tonsillectomy; how much Pat weighed when he was born; whether my mother had had a difficult time when I arrived. I couldn’t answer that one, but there was something else to be settled before I got in any deeper.
“Just a moment, Doctor,” I interrupted. “How much does it cost to have a baby?”
He gave me a subtly polite once-over, swiveled to upright, red fountain pen poised and asked:
“What is your husband’s income?”
I hastily divided Pat’s salary by three and he instantly multiplied the result by six and told me what Jake was going to cost.
At that it wasn’t so bad. The hospital I had picked was one of the most expensive in New York, and yet I could squeeze the baby into the budget-for everything, including the doctor’s fee and fifteen days in the hospital. Of course that was the very peak of the budget, but it would do.
“One more thing, Doctor! I have a pain and a bulge. It’s serious. It hurts.”
“Yes, that often happens.” He wasn’t going to let my stomach worry him. “Just a gas pain. Digestion is somewhat disturbed, you know.”
“But it hurts!”
“I’ll give you something for after meals. It’ll relieve the pain in a few days.”
“Yes, but it hurts now!”
“It will. And now if you’ll just step into the other room…”
I had been dreading this; but to the nurse, bored with a parade of bulging women, it was nothing at all. She led me into a small room where I stripped to my slip, shoes and stockings. I weighed in officially for the nine-round bout at 113.
She gestured me to a formidable leather couch table, and I climbed up and stretched out on it. First she produced a giant pair of steel ice tongs, an ominous weapon if I ever saw one. Then she delicately draped the upper half of me with sheeting and-you’ll never believe this, but it’s true, so help me-why would I lie about it?-she stood up a little screen upon my chest. I could hear the doctor washing his hands on the far side that he was sharing with the other half of me, but I couldn’t see him so I gathered the screen must have something to do with womanly modesty. A weird manifestation in sooth!
I was going to say a few words about this, but the nurse was too quick for me. She jabbed my arm with a long needle and drained most of the blood out while I yelled blue murder. I still couldn’t see the doctor for the “modesty-screen”, but now I heard him remark conversationally, “I certainly like a good patient, don’t you?”
Peering around the corner I discovered him waving the ice tongs over my abdomen. It seemed they were a measuring device, so I popped my head over the screen to say, “I know I have narrow hips, Doctor, do you think a Caesarean will be necessary? I’ve heard they don’t hurt a bit.”
There was no reply, but I heard him murmur to the nurse, who was jotting figures down in a notebook, “Good pelvic formation. Plenty roomy.”
It was a thorough examination, all right-eyes, ears, nose, throat, thyroid, heart, lungs, kidneys, blood pressure. Much thumping of my chest and back, too, and my last few drops of blood drained out-from the little finger this time.
When it was all over, I asked, “Am I pregnant?”
Fingertips on nose, he allowed cautiously, “I’d say so … yes … but it’s practically impossible to be sure this early. However, take these calcium and vitamin pills, eat a balanced diet, drink a lot of milk, and don’t overdo. Don’t do anything you’re not used to doing …. And don’t do much riding in a car:”
Damn! That’ll please Pat and the Ration Board. “Oh, yes! Call me if you’re very nauseated.” “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I’ve never
been ill in my life that way. My stomach is as strong as a horse.”
I pranced out and bought me a very chic bunny-lined topcoat. Nice and roomy, I noted practically, and a darned cute coat to boot. I also made an appointment with the dentist. The books all say to have your teeth checked over and I’m following the law to its last letter.
Then back to Connecticut to tell the tale of the day to a clucking Patrick, who astounds me by fussing like a mother hen. I laid it on thick, though. Somebody’s got to appreciate my sufferings, by golly!