growing baby

ROAN RUBEN HAYKINSON
an act in a play

(It’s the middle of the night. LINDA is sleeping soundly. Her husband, ILYA, had just finished doing some work and has come to bed. He is falling asleep.)

LINDA: Husband, awaken. I feel a tightness in my belly.

ILYA (groggily): Hrmph. Indigestion?

LINDA: No, contractions. (Melodically) It is time!

ILYA (groggily): Hrmph. We should sleep then, lest we be tired in the morrow.

LINDA: I yield to your advice.

(Fifteen minutes pass.)

LINDA: And another tightness! I feel that we may have a child born soon, one whose date of birth will sound rhythmic — four, twenty seven, eleven. I like this date.

ILYA: Hrmph. My advice remains; sleep beckons.

LINDA: I could not be in greater agreement.

(Fifteen minutes pass.)

LINDA: And another tightness.

(The scene changes. It is now the morning. Quietly, the family pantomimes the older child MATEO preparing to go to school, eating breakfast, and getting in the car with ILYA. They drive away.)

LINDA (to herself): Oh, what a joyous morning. I will pretend to sleep a bit, and eat something yummy and nutritious for break-fast.

(She pours herself some milk and eats a banana.)

LINDA: Oh, praises to the wondrous day that’s causing my muscles to tighten!

(The door opens, and ILYA walks in.)

ILYA: How be thee, my wife dearest? Has the tightness remained? Has it come on stronger, or with more rapidity?

LINDA: It is there, still!

ILYA: With you as my witness, I begin and shall continue recording these periods of tightness on my tele-phone.

LINDA: And as your witness, I affirm to you the beginning of another case of this belly-affliction.

ILYA: Let us also dispatch a message to your mother, so that she shall feel empowered to care for Mateo this eve, or even longer, should your waters break.

(Hours pass. It is the evening now. ILYA and LINDA are outside, walking.)

ILYA: You are so strong, Linda! You are able to walk right through your tightness.

LINDA: They do come on strong, but I think of the ocean, and of the baby riding out on a surf-board over the wave. We are there together.

ILYA: The imagery sounds truly lovely.

(They walk quietly for a while.)

ILYA: Are your tightnesses still there?

LINDA: They are, and they are stronger yet. It is no longer enough to think of the ocean. Perhaps we should call our Doula to help us in this journey!

ILYA: It is a plan well made. (He dispatches a message to the DOULA.)

ILYA: Ah, a message. (He plucks it out of the air and places it on his tele-phone.) The Doula tells us of her
imminent arrival. We should head on home.

(They walk home, stopping every now and anon.)

(Scene changes. LINDA is sitting in a chair. The DOULA is right in front of her, and ILYA is at the stove in the kitchen. He’s making brownies from a mix.)

LINDA: I need your hands, husband.

(ILYA walks over to LINDA, holds both of her hands.)

ILYA: I am here, o wife, so lean on me as you work really hard to bring this babe into our world.

DOULA: Tis a labor of love, but you need to care for yourself throughout. Breathe in, lower your shoulders, and let the wave come down smoothly over you.

LINDA (exhausted): Thank you as always. (Her shoulders relax.)

(ILYA walks over to the stove. The brownies need glazing.)

ILYA (to himself): I think I just need to spread this out. (Does it). Like this.

LINDA: I fear the hour is coming. We should leave this homestead and walk over to the hospital.

DOULA: For it is close, and your tightnesses are mere minutes apart, yes, it is prudent we do so.

(They grab some bags sitting nearby, and walk outside. Stopping every couple of minutes to let LINDA hold on to ILYA as she experiences painful tightnesses.)

LINDA: I afear a change in my condition. The babe may be born at any moment, the hour is nigh. However shall we cross the wide chasm of Wilshire Boulevard? The automobiles can come before we cross the distance of the green light.

ILYA: We should hurry across, but worry not. The automobiles can stop and wait.

DOULA: I shall be your support and together we will make it there. The hospital is but two hundred steps thence.

(They walk across the road. LINDA then stops.)

LINDA: The head is out! I can feel it!

ILYA: But surely you’re mistaken! It is too early for this, and it should take at least a half of an hour.

LINDA: Yet, it is so. Observe, my waters have broken.

DOULA: I would run to the hospital, but you, Ilya, are lighter of foot and may make it there faster.

ILYA: I shall not disappoint.

(He runs off to the hospital door. A security GUARD sits there.)

GUARD: Hark! Who goes there?

ILYA: It is I, a husband of a wife who’s giving birth on the corner of the street yonder. I am in dire need of a wheeled chair, and of people of the medical profession.

GUARD: The chair you seek is over there. (Points.) Run, and I shall inform the medical people.

ILYA: My gratitude for your assistance.

(He grabs the wheeled chair and runs back to the corner where LINDA is now standing, leaning on the DOULA.)

DOULA: The hour is nigh. Strike that, nay, the hour is here. Go and catch your offspring!

ILYA: Oh my. (Looks at LINDA’s pant leg. It is twice its normal girth.) Oh my.

(He looks inside the pant leg, to discover ROAN.)

ILYA (grabbing a hold of ROAN): He’s here. (To nobody in particular) Help!

ROAN: Waaaah!

DOULA: Pass him to me!

(ILYA passes ROAN between LINDA’s legs to the DOULA, who hands ROAN to LINDA.)

DOULA: Give me your overcoat. We shall cover the young babe with it. (Takes overcoat from ILYA, wraps it around ROAN.)

LINDA: I must sit down, now. Help me in this, dear friends.

(The DOULA and ILYA help LINDA into the wheeled chair. The GUARD arrives.)

GUARD: As the official representative of the hospital, I am empowered to make transportation of patients possible.

ILYA and DOULA: What?

GUARD: Let me push the chair to the hospital.

ILYA and DOULA: Oh. Very well.

(Scene changes. The GUARD pushes the wheeled chair into the hospital door, and over to the elevators, where he is met
by a chorus of NURSES.)

NURSES: Even though we were late
We’ve arrived to deliver
Or at least to receive
Little babe born so near.
We will help cut his cord
And will help with his mom
Then we’ll warm his pink skin
And shall celebrate some!

ILYA: Thank you, o nurses, for meeting us here.

LINDA: It’s too bad we missed the nice rhythm of four, twenty-seven, eleven. But the next day’s date is also nice!

NURSES: And we praise your resolve
And your catching the babe
In the street, by yourself
Tis a tale for the age!

ILYA: Without the Doula, though, I would be but a mess. And this is not even to mention my hardest-of-all laboring wife,
Linda, whose courage and strength got us here.

LINDA: Little Roan, he’s so nice and pink and piglet-like! He snorts a bit! But how unlike our plan was this delivery!

DOULA: Yes, indeed. We had planned to arrive at the hospital after some delay, so as to not stay here for a long time. But this is quite certainly beyond what I’ve expected. Never in my three hundred births has this happened.

LINDA: And we planned to have the baby’s cord be severed a little bit later, to let the final bit of placental blood circulate. But at no time was the plan to have this series of events take place.

ALL (rejoicing): Let us praise the young life
That began on the street
Quite a yarn, for the wife
To give birth on her feet
We shall sing this in song
We will tell the whole world
Of the Haykinson, Roan
Let this story be heard!

(Curtain falls.)