The Fetal Issue

Excerpt 1

“You’re doing fine. Relax. Get some rest.”

“But the contractions keep coming, and nothing happens.”

Katharine examined her again. Oh, dear God, she’s been fully dilated for hours...why doesn’t the baby come? “Sammy, I think the baby’s almost here. Give another push.” She felt Sammy shudder and heard her utter a brief cry, then -- silence. Frantically, Katharine scrambled onto the bed to cradle Sammy’s head in her lap. She stared into her eyes. To her horror, those soft eyes no longer twinkled but were fixed upon the huge beams overhead -- as had been Virgil’s. She rocked to and fro with Sammy’s head in her embrace and cried in despair.

With a start, Katharine released her grip, and Sammy’s body fell back onto the mattress like a limp, rag doll. The baby! What’ll happen to the baby? Katharine planted her ear onto Sammy’s abdomen. Do I hear a heartbeat? I don’t know -- yet -- yes, I do...a faint heartbeat. In a frenzy now, she bounded from the bed to Sammy’s workbench. She fumbled for a carving knife. I must do it. Sammy would want it.

Katharine realized that little time remained, yet, poised above the bed, she hesitated -- nervously twisting the knife in her fist. God, please -- give me strength. She knelt over Sammy and gritted her teeth.

She cut rapidly, trying to miss the baby. Sammy’s blood flowed lazily onto the sheet. Slowly, the mattress sucked it up...sponge-like.

Sammy’s life blood...ending up in a urine-stained mattress. Katharine bit her lip and wept. She could barely see, still her weapon hand worked relentlessly. She threw the knife aside and ripped open the placenta with her bare hands. Desperately, she groped for the baby. She felt it squirming for its life. From Sammy’s gaping womb, Katharine pulled it...slippery with blood.

The baby did not breathe.

Katharine pursed her lips around the tiny mouth and gently sucked fluid, which she spat to the floor. She felt the little chest heave and heard the crackling sound of a newborn fighting for its first breath of life.

Tiny lungs swelled with air, and the staccato cries of Sammy’s baby echoed from the shadowy reaches of the warehouse to assault Katharine’s ears.

She held the infant up to the light and examined it. Under its mother’s drying blood, its brown skin glistened crimson red.

“I name you Douglas.” Katharine glanced down upon Sammy’s gutted body and caught her breath. “No, I name you Sammy -- Your name is Samuel Virgil -- Samuel Virgil Carver.”

Excerpt 2

Julie realized that the most amazing aspect of her attitude was that she already had experienced the great sacrifices that must be made for an in-valid child. She knew that familial activities are centered around him. She knew that familial wants and needs are suppressed for him. She knew that his siblings...and parents...become psychotic martyrs for the remainder of their lives. Often times, retention of an in-valid child costs unconceived or unborn siblings their lives...a sort of retroactive murder. Julie was numbed by memories of these dilemmas yet irresistibly drawn to emulate her mother’s martyrdom.

She tried to rationalize into insignificance her daughter’s defects vis-à-vis Douglas’s. Granted, the baby possessed a horribly deformed body, but her brain is intact. As her mind develops, I must be near to help her.

Julie had finally accepted the risk of losing Mario should she persist in insisting that she keep their daughter at home. She felt certain that her husband was less selfish than had been her father.

Mario strode into the room.

His grim expression of determination unsettled Julie. Possibly, she had misjudged him.

He approached and, with neither a gesture of love nor regard for her grief, said, “Well, have you made up your mind?”

Mario’s insensitive attitude prompted her into more stubbornness than before. “I already told you last night, Mario: ‘I’m taking my baby home.’ ”

Her husband raised his arms in frustration then let them drop in defeat. “Julie, the baby is going to die...maybe not today...or tomorrow...but, soon. Why invest your emotions...my emotions...in a baby that possesses no future?”

“You don’t understand -- I already have eight-months’ worth of emotion invested in our daughter, and, no matter what her condition, she’s still ours. Perhaps she will die, but I will give her my motherly love until that day arrives.” Julie could see Mario’s frustration mount...he seemed on the verge of tears.

In an apparent change of tactics, he took Julie’s hands in his. “Look, honey, it’s not as if we’re abandoning the child. She’ll get just as good care in a private institution as she will at home...perhaps, better. You can visit her every day, if you wish.” He kissed her on the forehead.

She pulled away. “No! -- and don’t treat me as if I were a child.”