In Dr Randall’s defense, Allen says he is an old battlefield surgeon, more comfortable sawing off limbs and digging out lead balls. Female patients must put him ill at ease.
Be that as it may, how could his discomfort compare to mine? To be poked and prodded in such a way! To be coldly questioned about the most intimate concerns! He presumed I understood nothing of reproduction because I hadn’t recognized my state sooner. I had to explain the irregularity of my cycle, that I have often gone months with its absence, so thought nothing of it when it occurred this time. He only sighed as if this were yet another inconvenience and went back to his books, with no word of reassurance or gesture toward kindness.
It is agreed, though?—?we must obey the surgeon’s orders. It would not do to risk our child only so that I might have a bit of adventure. It seems impossible to hope, but maybe someday I will be afforded another opportunity to go to Alaska.
January 26
Everything has turned topsy-turvy, and at times I cannot remember which dream greets me when I wake. For a moment I nearly forget, but then it returns with a jolt?—?I will not go to Alaska, yet a child comes to life within me! Even when I give it no thought at all, its tiny heart beats. It can be no bigger than a finger. What does it have for eyes and limbs and sense? (Oh that I could read something on the subject!)
Only a few times in my life have I had such intensity of emotion as to feel as if the moment were not entirely real, and I was overcome in such a way just this morning. It rained throughout the night, but with dawn, the clouds lifted and the sun made a rare appearance. I went to the porch in hopes that the fresh air would dispel my queasiness, and standing there it occurred to me that my entire self is being altered, steadily and dramatically, and that something tremendous has begun. As I thought on it, the morning seemed to break into a million shards of light and color, and I saw and felt and heard everything at once?—?the water droplets that dotted the porch rail in a perfect glittering line, the chill river air that entered me and left with my breath, the sunlit fog that rose from the river valley. I heard the far off whinny of a horse, and when I looked down the hill toward the stables, I saw that the rain drops gathered and glistened on every surface, every bare tree branch and stone and blade of grass, and the sharp brilliance of it all nearly brought me to tears.
How is it that my maternity, such an ordinary, everyday occurrence of humankind, can feel utterly singular and overwhelming to me?
Allen, too, is affected in ways I did not expect. Though I show no outward signs of maternity, he falls over himself to help me to my feet when I leave a chair, and even while he is working at the desk, his eyes are often upon me, as if he is in awe of something I have done.
“Are you really sure?” he said last evening as he watched me in such a way. I was undressing in our bedroom and preparing to put on my nightgown. “The doctor is absolutely certain?”
Isn’t he happy for the news?
“God yes!” he said. “It just doesn’t seem real somehow. That it should happen to us, that we will have a baby together, and just as I’m leaving you. Everything at once. And here I thought I’d die an old bachelor.”
Allen reached out as if to touch me, but then he hesitated, as if he feared he could hurt me in some way. I took his hand with my own and held it firmly against my bare belly, and we were both still and quiet, standing together beside our bed, as if we might either of us see or feel some sign.
“I don’t like to leave you this way,” he said, with his hand still rested there.
Of course he will go, and I will manage best I can. I am still the same woman he married, I remind him?—?no more or less competent. Yet there is something quite tender, even vulnerable, about this new side of Allen.
January 27
It occurred to me last night as I drifted to sleep?—?am I also forbidden to travel by train East? These past days, we assumed I would go home to Mother while Allen is gone, but then I recalled the surgeon’s warnings.
When I went to the hospital this afternoon, Dr Randall was mending the broken foot of a young soldier (run over by an ammunition wagon, I have since learned) and even with all the man’s cursing and howling, it was clear the surgeon preferred that patient over me. “Take her to my office to wait,” he told his assistant, granting not a word or look in my direction.
When at last he came to see me, I apologized for bothering him but said I must clarify his orders.
And it is so. I will not go to Vermont, but instead must remain here until the baby is born. I do not know what to make of this. I never imagined I would stay in Vancouver alone without Allen.