Chapter story 1965 page #3

I decided it would be good to go outside; we needed to get out of the apartment for a while. It was hot and the news was all bad. Then as I am going down the stairs the first pain hits me and I know our baby is coming. I am scared, all I can think of is, “will the baby be alive?” Could there be something terribly wrong with him or her. I wanted a boy, a little person that looked just like his Dad. Or a girl with my brown eyes and blond hair like Arney. I knew that our baby was dead, but I just kept trying to think otherwise. My Grandmother is praying for us, she is so devoted to her Christian walk with God. If she were here with us, she could help me understand why this is happening to us.  Arney take me out to his Dads truck. I can see his fear. He wants this baby so much. He touches my belly all the time.

Driving to La everything seemed to be in slow motion. I see and smell the smoke coming from the riots. My heart was beating so fast, my body felt tense. It is so hot; we are more than 20 miles from the Hospital. Different exits were closed; I know Arney was just as scared as I was. Arney when upset sets his jaw, he is so Welch.The pain was coming longer and faster. These are the pains your Mother will never tell you about. We pull into the iterance of the hospital, police cars are everywhere around the hospital. Sirens screaming! We stop as close to the iterance as we could, a man in a white uniform has a wheelchair; he helps me out of the truck and into the chair. It hurts to move, everything is white hot, and the sky is flat with no color. The fires were turning everything gray. No air, I need air.

The door opens to the ER; the smell of blood is overwhelming mixed with the normal smells of the medications. I look into the faces of people that could be dyeing. Is this what war looks like? There is a war going on and I am in its sites. I start to throw up from the smell, the humanity, the pain from my own body. I am put in an area with curtains all around me. No one comes to check me and I have no idea where Arney is, I want my Mama, I want God’s grace, and I want my baby to be born alive and I want to scream for Arney but I can’t scream. I have always found silence in my pain, and hold my breath which is also not good. I don’t know how long I labored behind those curtains. I could hear the yelling, the voices, the moaning and the sirens. People were crying. All of a sudden someone yells code blue and I was taken to the elevator. I remember the lights in the ceiling flashing by as they rolled me down a long hall. I was put in a small room, not an operating room. A nurse assured me that I would be fine. She gave me a shot and left. There I was no one with me, my baby; the pain was all that I could deal with. At some point another girl was brought into this small room. She was ready to have her baby, so a doctor and nurse are working with her. She was yelling out in pain. I heard the baby cry. Then they took her somewhere with her baby. A baby had been born just about 4 feet from my head. It somehow gave me hope, maybe my baby would cry for me.

I had no since of time, the lights overhead were bright. I wanted to turn them off. I do not know how much time had passed when the doctor came in with a nurse. He was older, but when you are 20 everyone is older. I was given a couple of shots in my arm and told to push hard, and soon it was over. A baby boy with blond hair covered in blood was born and he is dead. The cord wrapped his tiny body. I am drugged; crying, laughing, and I do not know how to feel. It is over, the pain is gone from my body, but I am sick, I throw up and I cry more. I get another shot and then they wheel me out into a large area in the same bed where I had given birth to my baby boy just minutes ago. I am drugged; I can hardly open my eyes. There is my Arney waiting, not knowing anything about me or our baby. All we can do is cry. That is all we can do.

A nurse is asking us questions about how to handle our baby? She sounds so far away, Arney is taking care of what is to be done I remember the ceiling lights going by as we are heading to the elevator. I am going upstairs to a room. Ones in the ward, I fell asleep. I don’t know when Arney left; he held my hand till I was asleep.  To be continued..