I like doctors.
That cold, sterile smell of a doctor's office is reassuring to me. That smell means I am in a building with well-trained professionals who are qualified to make serious health decisions. That smell means that the old guy in the white coat with the stethoscope around his neck knows what he's talking about. I like that smell because I trust that smell.
So when my fiancée, Laura, suggested going to a midwifery as opposed to a doctor's office, I was skeptical. Laura assured me that the nearby midwife center came highly recommended and she would receive more personal attention there than she would at a traditional doctor's office. I wasn't convinced, but I also wasn't the one who claimed to have a little person growing inside me, so it wasn't really my call. (You have to pick your battles.)
The first thing I noticed when we arrived was that the waiting room was staffed by girls in their 20s wearing jeans—not doctor's scrubs. I took a seat next to Laura as she filled out some forms, but I couldn't find any newspapers or magazines to read. The only available reading materials were brightly colored pamphlets that contained words like “chakra” and “holistic.”
I don't like that word: Holistic. Last year, I spent a lot of time around new agey hikers and I have a really cool uncle that is a chiropractor, but I just don't trust that word. Call me closed-minded, but when I hear the word “holistic,” in my head it sounds a lot like “super groovy herbal shit that hasn't been tested by western medicine.” I don't want hocus pocus--I want the scientific method.
I only had to spend a few minutes hating the waiting room before they called Laura's name. That was fast, I thought. In a doctor's office, you'd wait far longer than that. Maybe Laura was right about midwiferies giving their patients more attention. I started to think that maybe this wasn't such a bad place after all.
But the enthusiasm fizzled when we entered the examination room. Not only was there no cold, sterile trustworthy smell, there was a bunch of Native American decorations on the wall where the diplomas should be. Laura informed me that the decorations were Mayan, but that definitely didn't make me feel any better seeing how I'm pretty sure the Mayans believe that the world is going to end right around the time Laura is supposed to go into labor.
The midwife entered the room, but she didn't refer to herself as Dr. [insert last name here]--she enthusiastically said, “Hi, I'm Kathy!” She reminded me of a really upbeat version of the little old lady from the Poltergeist movies. She seemed friendly enough, but I didn't want “friendly,” I wanted “official.” I wanted a crotchety old man who used 13 syllable words that I didn't understand.
To her credit, Kathy seemed very smart and she was a good listener. She answered all of our questions and repeatedly reassured me that we were very close by a hospital that would be easily accessible if anything were to arise that the midwifery couldn't handle. Finally, someone was saying the right thing.
...
After about 30 minutes of questions, Laura was getting a physical examination while I was playing Angry Birds on my smartphone. It's not that I didn't care about what was happening—I just didn't want to distract Kathy and I needed something to keep myself occupied.
I was about to get the third star on a really tough level, when Kathy said that we were going to try to find a heartbeat. I quickly glanced up from my phone to make sure that while she was looking for this heartbeat, there would be some kind of scientific looking instrument involved and she wouldn't be waving around voodoo dolls or something.
I saw the Doppler fetal monitor in her hand and decided that no witchcraft was afoot and went back to my game.
And then, I heard it.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom...
It was fast, but steady and clear. I heard the little heartbeat and suddenly, the pregnancy became very real.
Maybe up until that moment, I hadn't been totally convinced that Laura was pregnant. I mean, I had seen the little blue cross on the store bought pregnancy test a few weeks earlier, but maybe there had been a mistake or she had accidentally smudged some toothpaste on it. The box said it was 99.9% accurate, but at the end of the day, it was still just a little stick that my girlfriend peed on.
And yeah, Laura had been experiencing some mild stomach problems that she had claimed were morning sickness, but who knows? Maybe she had just eaten a bad burrito or something.
But then there was this heartbeat. And it was real. I couldn't pretend it was anything other than a heartbeat.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom...
As soon as I heard that beating, I stopped thinking about doctors and midwives. After all, Kathy might have had a bunch of crazy crap on her walls, but she had explained very clearly that she was a certified nurse-midwife licensed by the state of Pennsylvania. She's been delivering babies at this midwife center since I was six. And with that thought in mind, my fairly uninformed, personal hangups with midwifery didn't seem worth dwelling on anymore.
There are more pressing matters now. I'm going to have a kid in 7 months.
I need a job.
