Fetal Position

Stephanie Nelson

Monitor lights brightened the room but it was dark enough for Cora. Dark or not wasn’t keeping her from sleep, it was the babies crying. She rolled to her side in the hospital bed and touched the soft remains of pregnancy on her stomach. She moved her hand down until she reached the C-section wound dressing, which rustled a bit under her ingers and then the pain struck. It had only been quiet for ive minutes and her body melted a little into white bedding, looking for sleep anyway. She had sent Jef home for the night even though he’d slept in the awkward chair-turned-rollaway-bed for the past two nights and swore he was used to it. Hopefully this was the last night she’d be in the hospital and he might as well get a good night’s sleep she told him. One of them should. What if you need something? He said. I have nurses, she said. As if he’d be any help, he was such a hard sleeper. Jef patted her head like she was the family cat, grabbed his work jacket and walked out at 5 p.m. Sure, Cora had pain medication but the most recent dose was wearing of. She looked at the hands on the clock hanging over a dusty rose-papered wall by the door and then at the whiteboard where the nurse wrote her pill schedule. Sleep was the only way to get through the next two hours. The current silence pushed the hope that she’d succeed and enter sleep’s palace after all. It curled up around her and held her until the airy invitation arrived at the same time a pinched noise began from a few rooms down. The single cry was methodical at irst and she was wide awake again. Cora assumed she’d be dealing with for a crying newborn for months to come. The crying wasn’t pleasant, but it was part of the package of having a baby. She just didn’t think it would be part of this package. Still laying on her side, Cora covered her ears with her hands and cried throaty tears to drown out the noise. She didn’t even ease into it. First stop? Absolute sobbing. One newborn cry triggered a second and a third until they were speaking a bawling baby language through hospital walls to each other. Cora heard observations that devolved into existential questions. It’s cold. I’m hungry. Change my diaper. Help me sleep. Don’t make me sleep. Who am I? Why am I here?

At least you are here, Cora cut them of. She thought of new mothers annoyed at their baby’s cry, perhaps wanting to sleep, like her. She raged against these imaginary mothers, shaming them with how dare yous until guilt made her stop. Now the babies were at full volume, like the hours before. Cora grabbed a second pillow and held it over her exposed ear but no matter how hard she pushed it against her face, the hypoallergenic pillow allowed shrill entry. When one was inally cold with tears, she switched it, chancing the brief exposure to noise in the exchange. She looked at the clock and it had only been thirty minutes so she lopped her head down again and when she landed, a question erupted.

What am I going to do with the baby’s nursery at home? That paradise of chocolate brown and blue that she and Jef chose for the walls because they didn’t know the baby’s gender. All the baby shower gifts, the closet full of diapers, the drawers full of baby bodysuits. She imagined herself standing in the nursery in her hospital gown, holding a lighter and licking ire into the empty white wood crib and strutting out like some badass almost-mom from a movie nobody would watch. All ive pillows were too wet to lay on now, so she tossed them and grabbed the bed sheet and balled it up, holding it over her head as she laid on the naked mattress. The newborns were still in full dissonance and she swore every baby within a mile must be participating and she was their magnet. Cora saw cries like brand new baby souls shooting out of toothless mouths and congregating outside her door. She looked at the hallway light poking through the bottom of the door and saw shadows crawling around, babies targeting her. She felt numb like maybe she’d throw the door open and dare them to come in and maybe they’d bring him along too. But then again, no. He wasn’t with them. Cora had grown him inside but imagined him at every stage of life outside and now he lay cold in whatever hospital morgue was downstairs. She’d given him his irst and last bath when he died two days ago, the day he was born. The photographer came to take pictures and she even put on mascara for it. She thought of his tiny body as hers folded in half in the hospital bed. She had washed him with a sponge and warm water. Why warm? He didn’t know the diference, but she couldn’t chance it. His skin was soft and his features perfect.

He knew. All these mothers will raise their babies, but not me, she thought. Why them and not me? Good and nice Cora replied, “Wait a minute, would you have their babies pass away too just because yours did? It’s not their fault yours didn’t make it.” Good Cora would use euphemisms for death so everyone else felt more comfortable. But this Cora said, “I don’t want to see a single goddamned baby until I give birth to one that’s alive.” It sounded reasonable, she thought. The feverish newborn noise was at a high plateau and loud baby souls raged against her hospital door as if they heard what she thought about them and about their mothers. The babies cried in unison and it was the droning rhythm of a phone’s busy signal. Sorry, Cora, the Universe is busy fulilling everyone else’s dreams and can’t get to you right now. Her eyes were so swollen from crying that she could feel along pufy eyelid rims with her ingertip. Squishy, full of luid, they were tight and didn’t hurt but she imagined if they illed any more they would explode, pouring out four oceans of tears she could cry for her lost child. Two brown eyeballs would be loose and bobbing against the deluge until they grow gills and swim in saltwater. It amused her to imagine her eyes submitting notice that they prefer living underwater and maybe they’ll keep doing this forever, thank you very much. The crying newborns began a decrescendo and Cora looked at the clock on the wall. One more hour until pain medication. The cries settled into faint suckling noises as the babies found milky bliss and she felt something warm on her chest and looked down to see she was leaking. She’s supposed to be pumping to ease the pain, but what’s the point? The pain is here and a breast pump can’t ix it. It was quiet for ten whole minutes and Cora was nestling into her pillowless bed when the door to her room clicked open and a nurse arrived for a routine check. At irst the nurse stood there looking at the pillows on the loor, Cora’s swollen face and two perfect wet circles on her hospital gown. But on cue, the newborns started up again and the nurse looked back into the hallway and gasped louder than she meant to. Cora rolled over, crying again. “Oh honey. I’ll get you some fresh pillows and let’s see,” she looked at her watch, “You’ve only got a few minutes until your next dose so let’s get that

going.” And she rushed out the door, careful to close it tightly as if that would help. Next, a warm hand landed on Cora’s shoulder and when she rolled over, two bright pink pieces of foam sat in the nurse’s hand. “I didn’t even think to ask for earplugs!” Cora cried. The nurse only nodded but her eyes gleamed wet too. Cora took the medication and inserted earplugs and silence swallowed the sound of crying babies.