At the recommendation of Elise's doctor, we sought what we hoped would be a final ultrasound to get the final okay for Clem's arrival.
I scheduled the appointment for 8:20 a.m., but after dropping Peter off at a friend's house for the morning, Sam off at school, and making our way through the rush hour transito creeping through Asa Sul (sometimes, the most direct route is not always the fastest route. Lesson learned. Again), we finally arrived 30 minutes late only to be told to come back in 40 - 50.
Elise and I decided to run downstairs and grab some breakfast and a coffee. We stopped at one of many lanches set up around the city for the dispensing of cafezinhos and salgados, little more than a shack, really, some no more than four wooden poles with a thatched roof, beer and popsicle cooler, peddling gum, cigarettes, refilleable cell phone cards, and dark, sweet coffee out of a pump thermos. We ordered two cafezinhos with milk and two salagdos, kind of like a hot pocket. It was bread sprinkled with dried oregano and filled with minced ham. In the bustling hospital sector, but still under the palms and the hot sun, it is not easy to forget we are in a foreign land, though one that is increasingly familiar.
We enjoyed what would be our last few minutes of peace before Clem would come. There are already peaceful moments, but our next date night is probably several weeks away, at least, so this brief diversion was welcome, if not entirely convenient. We talked about Clem, the boys, a return trip to Rio, our bid list, and the future (of which there is much to discuss).
We rode the elevator back upstairs just in time to walk into Dr. Luiz's office. We sat down and immediately Dr. Luiz's cell phone rang. He answered it.
"Oi, Papai...sim, Papai...sim, Papai....sim, Papai...okay, Papai."
He thumbed the cell phone off and set it on the desk behind him. He turned toward his computer screen. His eyes reddened, large tears welling in them.
"My grandmother," he explained, "had...had...." He touched his chest, searching for the word.
"Infarto?" I offered.
He nodded, wiping tears from his eyes with the tips of his fingers from both hands.
Heart attack.
A few moments of awkward silence later, he regained his poise and began the exam. Elise would have two sensors strapped to her belly and we would listen to Clem's heart rate for 10 minutes. During the ensuing 10 minute span, Elise experienced two contractions, not unusual in and of itself as she had been experiencing contractions on and off for several weeks. During one of the contractions, Clem's heart rate dipped. Through the other, it remained steady.
Five minutes into the exam, Dr. Luiz's cell phone rang again. Twice. He answered the second time, "Oi, Sergio..." Sergio? A brother? Uncle? Cousin?
Dr. Luiz hung up the phone and started crying again.
I couldn't help think of a circle of life, one life coming, another leaving. It was cold calculus, but, like I said, I couldn't help it. Elise and I exchanged suffered glances, by this point, just wanting to get the heck out of there before the phone rang again and Dr. Luiz left Elise on the table for a flight to Belo Horizonte to see his grandmother.
Through the tears, Dr. Luiz explained to us the reason Clem's heart rate had most likely dipped during the first contraction was because the umbilical cord may be wrapped around her neck. A subsequent sweep of the ultrasound wand confirmed as much. Elise had been carrying Clem around for longer than she had ever carried around any other baby, and, for her, Clem was a very real person. For me, on the other hand, she had always been this kind of abstract concept, a hypothetical person, my imaginary daughter-to-be. At that moment, she became no longer imaginary, but very real. My initial reaction, "Get that thing from around her!" I screamed the words in my head, though Dr. Luiz and everyone else assured Elise and I she was fine and there was no cause for concern. And, as we now know, of course, they were right.
I hope Dr. Luiz and his grandmother will have equally good news, though the reality of the matter is, we may never know. Now that Clem is here, I can hope the circle of life was interupted if only briefly.
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