When I dropped the baby. In front of the doctor.

Well, actually, in front of the nurses. But still...


It was my six-week check up after giving birth to my son, Ian. I was still not back in shape, I was breastfeeding for what felt like every minute of the day and night, I was hot and sweaty and I was feeling flustered and tired. July and the constant sticky feeling that came with breastfeeding were taking their toll. I arrived early for my doctor’s appointment in Stamford, risking our lives on the busy northeast corridor that is I95.

The thing about I95 is that you can never be sure if the ride will take 10 minutes; we lived in Norwalk, CT, just north of Stamford, or 10 hours depending on traffic, the time of day and general dumbass drivers maneuvering around the road like they were in grand theft auto.

I was early, and I parked us on a loveseat. The décor reminded me of a cross between a bordello and my aunt Libby’s house, maroon furniture, mauve walls, mauve carpet, and lots of silk flowers (what is the point of those anyway? They send the message: I want flowers, but I’m too pathetically lazy to buy them, water them or throw them out when they’re dead) and little bric-a-brac thingies everywhere that I despise. Though to see our house today, filled with taxidermy, paintings and bird’s nests, doorknobs and medical equipment, you’d think differently. The point about stuff is, if you’re going to collect things, say like doorknobs or dead birds, it should have a point of view or an edge. And crystal candy dishes in my opinion have no point of view and are most definitely edgeless.

But where was I?

Oh, back at Dr DeBordello’s office. Ian was just starting to wake up as I parked myself, and him on the sofa. I had on a sundress: yellow with white flowers that allowed for ventilation, and let’s be honest, it was one ugly dress but it was the only one that actually fit around my belly. Ian was scrunching up his face, (we joked that he was the love child of Lee Harvey Oswald, and George Steinbrenner). I took him out of the car seat to try and comfort him with a pacifier, or if he’d take it, a bottle. He was still in his clench fist stage; little hands clenched, arms close to the body. I guess it takes a while for them to unfurl once they’ve been in tight quarters for nine months. That’s when the nurse called me. I was flustered, as I mentioned, and I had a whole sofa of stuff to pack up; the baby, the diaper bag, the bottles, pacifier… and she was standing there, waiting. I grabbed all the stuff and threw it in the diaper bag. I put Ian in the car seat, grabbed my purse, the diaper bag, and the car seat and made my way across the waiting room to where the exam rooms were located.

Now, as I’ve mentioned, I was leaving the brothel/waiting room behind, and the lip of the carpet ended by the door jamb, and behind that door, it was all bright lights, clinical white tiles, more what you’d expect a doctor’s office to look like. So, when carpet ends, they, whoever they are, put a little rubber lip thing on the end, again, as I mentioned. My big clumsy stupid sneakered feet, yes, I was wearing a sundress with sneakers, caught on that lip.

And that’s when it happened. I pitched forward. The car seat slowly swung forward and a six-week-old Ian sort of plunked out of the car seat. Onto the floor, right there in front of the nurses. Luckily, he was still in curled up position, protecting his head and face with his little fists and arms, but really. How could I have forgotten to strap him back in?

The nurse scooped him up, noticing my face, hysterical, shaking, and she comforted him while I went into my exam room. “You won’t be able to calm him down, so let me do it.” She assured me that he was fine, just startled, and that “babies are pretty resilient.” Well believe me, I was thinking, he’d better be if he’s got me for a mother.

The kindness of that nurse was the one thing that I remember the most from that visit. I do not remember the actual check up. I don’t remember even seeing the doctor. I just remember how she expertly scooped, hugged and cuddled Ian during my checkup.

I finally told Ian about this. We joke about it and now that he’s about to go to high school for the first time in about three days (I’m more nervous than he is I think) he says to me, “see, look how I turned out.” Pretty good actually. Even if he’s had to put up with my “bumpy parenting” through the years.