I cried during my first C-section
The woman on the operating table is bleeding out from the incisions made in her abdomen. We do our best to manage the pain, but every new cut is received with a cry from behind the curtain. I flinch. I'm not used to hearing these sounds. The sight is bearable, but the cries are not. After a couple of minutes, the baby emerges. But the first utterance that leaves the mother's mouth is not anything regarding her condition or pain, or the way that her abdomen has been violently ripped apart, or the blood that is pulsing out of the wound like a fountain pen forced onto paper. No -- she worries, desperately, about why she couldn't hear her baby cry. Nothing could have prepared me emotionally for that. I tried to hide my expression behind my surgical mask. I'm not easily moved, but a mother's love could move me. I think a father can love in many ways -- working years in a dead-end manual profession so his children could go to university, instilling the discipline neces...