She looked at the centerpiece of the room-a padded table with padded metal stirrups, padded metal armrests, handgrips, and headrest, all in dark green.
Is this right? she wondered. I can't back out now. I'd just be up on that thing again in seven months with a bigger problem.
She tried to envision being a mother to a crying, demanding baby. She didn't think she possessed the necessary calm pa-tience that child care required. I could never be like Mom. No one could be that loving and kind all the time anymore.
The door opened. In stepped Dr. Fletcher wearing a crisp white paper surgical gown, her hair tucked under an equally white cap. She wore light green paper slacks, and on her feet were light green paper shoes. The tall nurse followed, simi-larly dressed.
"Good evening, Valerie," Dr. Fletcher said with a warm smile. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
"Nurse Dyer will assist me tonight. I think you've met."
Valerie nodded. The nurse gazed back with cool efficiency.
"While we're getting ready here," the doctor said, "could you please climb onto the table?" Valerie sat up on the paper-covered cushion, leaned back, and lifted her legs up to the stirrups with Nurse Dyer's guid-ance. While Dr. Fletcher pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then slipped another pair over them, Nurse Dyer stepped over to the far side of the room to unlock a closet. There, on small rubber wheels, stood a white and gleaming object the size of a small refrigerator. On one side was a control panel with switches, dials, lights, and a small video screen. On the other side was a long, white, flexible plastic tube terminating in a stiff, clear segment with a small opaque ridge on one side. Nurse Dyer wheeled the device into position a few feet back from where Valerie's legs spread. She hooked a foot to slide a chair under Fletcher as the doctor slipped a mask over her mouth and nose. Dyer pulled a light down from the ceiling, switched its brilliant lamp on, and positioned the beam directly between Valerie's legs. The rays warmed Valerie like the sun. It brought to her an old memory of a camping trip with her first boyfriend in high school. They had biked up to Flagstaff from Grand Junction. Below them spread the town of Boulder and the endless plains of eastern Colorado. They both disrobed and lay in the sun, its heat tickling parts of them that seldom basked in its radiance.
Valerie let out a startled gasp. The cold touch of a thermom-eter entering her brought her back to the present.
"Okay," the doctor said, sliding on a pair of goggles. "Hold that in there for a moment." Nurse Dyer donned two sets of gloves and her own goggles. Silent, well rehearsed, she performed her duties with a prac-ticed efficiency that wasted no motions of her shapely frame. She switched on the machine. It hummed and gurgled. The end of it made a sucking sound for a moment.
"Dulbeco's medium ready," the nurse said. "Pump on. Ham's F-10 warming."
"Buminate?" asked Fletcher.
"Five percent."
Dr. Fletcher turned her attention to Valerie. "Since you're only about seven weeks, Valerie, we're going to use the suc-tion method. This is the latest equipment, and it's very gentle."
"Will it hurt much?" She craned her neck to see what was going on. She saw Dr. Fletcher lubricating the tube with K-Y jelly.
Fletcher withdrew the thermometer. "Thirty-seven point five." The nurse took it from her hand. She grasped the suc-tion tube, bent the hysteroscope into position, and peered into an eyepiece on the end.
"Well," she said, "the uterus itself doesn't have too many nerve endings, but it'll feel a little uncomfortable when we dilate your cervix." She grasped the syringe Dyer pressed into her hand. "We're going to give you a pericervical block. It'll numb you up like Novocain at the dentist's so it won't hurt as much." Using the fingers of a speculum to open the way, Fletcher guided the needle to its destination and pushed gently. The sharp sensation caused Valerie to twitch.
"Easy," Fletcher said, emptying the syringe into Valerie's flesh. "There. All done." The hypo withdrew. She reached next for the suction tube.
"What makes this device better than the older models is that I can see what I'm doing through this hysteroscope. Here we go."
Valerie felt the cool intrusion of the tube as it slid into her. There was a pause, then she felt a blunt pressure against her cervix. The end of the tube moved slowly around, Fletcher peering head down into the scope like a submarine commander seeking an enemy ship.
"Just relax, Valerie," her soothing voice entreated. "I'm get-ting it lined up." A slow, insistent pressure gave way to the pain of numbed tissues and muscle being stretched. Valerie clenched her teeth. If it hurt this much under the painkiller for just a little tube, what must childbirth feel like? In that instant, she experienced an agonizing relief at her choice.
"Relax. Loosen up. We're almost there."
A pain like a fiery knife stab pierced her as a final, firm push drove the tube home.
"Transcervical," Nurse Dyer noted, watching the image on the video screen.
"Now we look around a bit," the doctor said in her most con-versational tone. "The uterine walls-I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of one-look like an ocean filled with drift-ing fronds of seaweed. Nestled in there somewhere is the embryo."
"Go back," Dyer interjected.
"Saw it," Fletcher murmured, gently maneuvering the probe. She continued to speak soothingly to her patient.
"Now what we're going to do, Valerie, is turn on the suction. It's not noisy, and you won't feel any pressure. What we'll do is dislodge the embryo and remove it. This is a very gentle method that doesn't damage much tissue. You'll have a little bit of spot-ting when we're done but virtually no scarring." Valerie nodded. She didn't know what else to do. She lay back and stared at the soft green color of the ceiling. A fire sprinkler head hung directly over her, right next to the smoke detector. There was a little brown spatter on the ceiling. She wondered what it was. Could it possibly be blood? How? Maybe it was a water stain. Rust.
She felt something indistinct rip within her. Deep and far away, like a plant being uprooted in the distance.
"Lavage," the doctor called out.
"Cycling," replied the nurse.
"Hold it." She moved the tube around slightly, then with-drew it an inch. "All right. Suction." Her hands held the tube rock steady.
"This is the slow part," Fletcher said in a pleasant voice. "It takes a minute or two to get everything out." She peered and probed gently. "We don't want to leave any foreign tissue in there where it could cause problems."
"Transoptus nominal," Nurse Dyer said, flicking some switches and turning a dial or two. "Capture."
"Okay" was the doctor's terse reply. "Cleaning up."
"Tanking out lavage."
Dr. Fletcher slowly pulled the tube back. "While I have you here, Valerie, would you want me to fix this so it doesn't hap-pen again?"
Valerie looked between her knees at the woman's masked face.
"What? You mean tie me off?"
The doctor nodded. "I can do a laproscopic sterilization when we're done here."
"Oh, no. I still want to be a mother. Just not right now. Maybe later." She grunted at the sensation of the suction tube's with-drawal. Her cervix throbbed; her vaginal walls ached.
"Then we're done." Fletcher placed the instrument in a small tray on the side of the machine. It was coated with smears of bright red blood. Blood covered the fingertips that reached for cotton gauze. Valerie did not feel as if she was bleeding. She felt nothing at all now but a dull ache in her abdomen and an impression of finality. There was no going back now. No chance to change her mind. The gauze rubbed roughly against her tender flesh. Dr. Fletcher removed her goggles, then stripped off her outer set of gloves and threw them in a metal waste can.