Still birth

It might have been the demographics of Berkshire or perhaps the fact that I covered the Geriatric and Oncology wards as junior house officer on call. Each weekend on call, I had to examine at least 4 or 5 dead people. After a while, it became a pretty normal thing to do. Then I went into Paediatrics.

I hadn't really seen anyone dead in a while; a few extremely malformed or premature babies perhaps, but not anyone who'd ever had half a chance of survival.

The parents wanted to be present while I examined the baby. *Eddie was a term baby, who had been alive and active in the womb until 5 hours previously; then his heart had mysteriously stopped. The obstetricians induced his delivery, but he had already been dead for 2 hours by the time he emerged. He lay in a standard issue cot beside his mother's labour ward bed. He was dressed in a baby-gro and woolly hat, and had been carefully tucked in. The parents had declined a post-mortem, so I was to perform a "detailed external examination".

After conveying my condolences to the parents, I explained "I need to take all Eddie's clothes off to examine him. I need to have a close look at him from head to toe, and stick my finger in his mouth to examine his palate. Then I need to turn him over to look at his back."

His mother nodded. "Leave the clothes for me to put back on," she said. "It might be the last time I get to dress him." Her eyes were dry, but red and cried-out."He's a perfect little baby," she whispered.

Eddie lay still with his eyes closed and lips pursed; he was purply-blue and ice-cold to touch. I removed his hat to feel his fontanelle. I listened for a minute for his non-existent heart and breath sounds. I removed his nappy to find that he was still mid-poo; so I had to wipe his bum in order to reveal his anus. I flipped him over to see his spine, and he was so limp in my hands I worried I might break him. Blood-stained fluid dripped from his mouth as I turned him, and landed on the white sheets. "Sorry," I mummured. Apart from some macerated skin at the neck and near the umbilicus (as to be expected for a stillborn baby), the examination was completely normal. "He is perfect, as you say," I concluded, rearranging his head and limbs into an appropriately baby-like position. Eddie's mom and dad smiled, "thank you."

Thanks mom

It's been about a week since mom left, for the airport at 4 in the morning. I watched from the window, in my pyjamas, willing the taxi driver to come out of his warm cab to help mom with her suitcase, which he did. She looked very small from 4 floors up, and I missed her already.

The flat's still got a touch of shiny, Jiffy cleaness, despite my recent weekend on nights (i.e. 96 hours without doing the dishes or tidying up). It wasn't until a couple of days after mom left that I noticed that everything (which I had literally spent hours scrubbing before mom arrived) was even shinier and tidier than before. Even the inside of the freezer had been neatly rearranged.

It also emerges that mom used to take me to the library daily before I could even talk. Maybe that's why, as far as I can remember, I could always read.
***
Apparently it's that time of year when grey seals come to shore to pup. When mom and youee and ching were here, we went to North Berwick to see if we could spot some. We did, but only by webcam link to the visitor centre, which was a bit rubbish.

On the train back to work after my half-week of leave, I looked up from reading the Metro to see not one, but three grey seals basking, glinting and blubbery in the sun. They had convened on a rocky outcrop not more than 20 or 30 metres from the track. And yesterday, on my way home from a night on the neonatal unit, (and I would've doubted it if this latter had been my only sighting), there they were again, on the same rock, somewhere between Burntisland and Aberdour.