Metals
A fictional short-short story
I used a triplet bicycle to drop my daughter at school, my wife at her job, and then I parked the bike at the cafe I manage. It was fun, bonding, and green.
Then, I was glancing for just a half-second at my daughter when, out of nowhere, a cherried Mustang slammed into us. The driver roared off. I was fine but my daughter and wife weren’t. Of course, I called 911 but five minutes passed before the ambulance arrived, which felt even longer.
In the ER’s full waiting room, the nurse judged that my wife’s injury could wait but wheeled my daughter in right away. Of course, we were terrified. An hour later, a doctor came out: “I’m sorry to say…” I was frozen; my wife screamed.
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My wife turned out to have a broken hip and needed surgery. That went fine and, at the first post-op appointment, she asked if it was okay to get pregnant. The orthopedist said she must wait three months for the hip to heal and ideally two years because the artificial joint releases tiny amounts of metals that are harmless to adults but very occasionally are harmful to a fetus.
But on my wife’s very first likely fertile day after three months, she begged to start trying — “I can’t bear living without our baby and only having another one will help.”
But we had trouble getting pregnant despite no problems before. The fertility doctor said that my wife has few viable follicles, perhaps because of the nearby blood loss from the accident. She was given FSH injections, suffered the common side effect of muscle aches and was grateful that I gave her lots of massages. I was eager to know the baby’s sex but she didn’t want to know. She was hoping for another girl. I kept my mouth shut that I was hoping for a boy.
Of course, remembering the orthopedist’s caution about metals getting released into our baby, we were more nervous even than the typical expectant parents. But all turned out fine. I’m writing to you from the hospital — My wife had wanted a midwife-assisted home birth but because of her hip, was urged to have the baby in the hospital. We’re thrilled to have a healthy 8 lb. 5-ounce — boy. :-)
I read this aloud on YouTube.
Marty Nemko is a career and personal coach, and author of 34 books including Relationship Stories. You can reach Marty at mnemko@gmail.com
