Three New Babies and a Busted Dad

A Story by Ron John31

I work the night shift at a hospital and you see and hear some of the wildest things at times.

Call me a sentimental fool but I couldn’t help but smile when I heard the crying of a very new born baby in the delivery room next door to the empty one I was working in. Since I had entered the empty delivery room about an hour before to make a few adjustments on the surgical table I had listened to the organized chaos next door seeing the dance of doctors and nurses around the expectant mother in my mind’s eye. The actual conversations were extremely muffled to the point they were unintelligible but the screams of the mother and, finally, the cries of the baby were not.

I figured I would soon see the staff taking the most actively involved people next door to the recovery room but instead I heard the professional demeanor of the doctors’ return with mama again slowly ramping up the volume on whatever she was saying. When she started screaming again I was able to figure out what the deal was with the cries of a second baby. A small cheer erupted, I guess from the hospital staff, but it was immediately muted with mama beginning a new round of huffing and puffing which morphed into the sounds of exhausted moaning. While I still couldn’t understand the words leaking through the wall I did detect some concern in the subdued voices and that went on for several minutes.

Finally a new round of cries began with me figuring that the third and, hopefully, final baby had entered the world. The cheers that emerged through the wall then pretty much confirmed my assumption and from my time waiting for other surgical rooms in the past I could hear tale tell sounds of everything winding down. Now if I wasn’t such a nosy fool I would have ignored the following events but sometimes you can’t really go against your basic nature but at least I got a belly laugh out of it.

Just as I was packing my tools up I saw staff starting to pass my door. Since I had become somewhat emotionally involved with the proceedings I stepped out into the hallway to do an impromptu inspection of the sterilizer situated in a small alcove. I was quickly rewarded with the sight of three babies being wheeled out of the room in small hospital basinets by smiling nurses.

The leading baby was wearing a pink skullcap and while I understand the deal about the vision of new born babies being fuzzy she had her eyes open checking out the world. I’m big on first impressions and if they one that hit me was true that little one is going to be the next Albert Einstein. I could feel an intense intelligence emanating from the kid and said a small prayer hoping she can use it to straighten out a messed up world.

The next baby was wearing a blue cap and was sound asleep. It’s easy to figure being born is exhausting for the babies as well as the mom and hell, little dude had surely earned a nap. The thought that passed through my mind about that one was that the baby thing bored him and he wouldn't want to be bothered with much until preschool started.

The third and finally little one had his eyes open like his sister but where I saw a powerful intelligence in her this little dude seemed to shouting “Shaka Brah” to the world. Feeling pretty good myself I did the signal with the thumb and pinkie extended on my right hand with the other fingers closed and flipped my wrist a couple of time while saying “Life is good brah”. Of course that earned me a disapproving scowl from the nurse in charge of the baby but I don’t like her to begin with. I could clearly see that little dude catching some knarly waves on the North Shore years in the future.

The new mom followed soon after and while I have no idea whether her delivery was natural or C-section she was conscious with the head of her bed slightly raised. Even after what was certainly a grueling experience to say the very least, I’ll be damned but the new mom looked radiant. Her blond hair was dripping in sweat and hung in clumps around her head but she had this glow that shined through even though it was easy to tell she was utterly exhausted. She passed by me talking with the nurse pushing her bed and to my surprise she actually seemed giddy.

“I’m glad I’ll never have to go through that again.” I thought I heard her say but the nurse started laughing and I may have misunderstood.

Now the new dad was a total basket case the minute I saw him emerge from the delivery room. Both he and his wife could not have been much beyond their early thirties but where his wife was beaming after everything he looked distraught. The doctors involved in the delivery had escaped in the opposite direction leaving the new dad to follow his kids and wife alone. He slowly shuffled passed me and paused momentarily with this forlorn look.

“I have triplets,” he said to me smiling but looking lost, “and I will never have sex again.

“You got that one right bucko!” I heard his wife yell back. I had just enough time to pat the guy sympathetically on back then jump back in and close the door to the delivery room I had been working in before I broke down and started laughing my butt off.