Princess Daisy (11 page)

Dr. Allard himself was a compact, beaming, competent and energetic man who grew tulips almost as well as he grew babies. He told Francesca that she could expect her child sometime at the end of May. Her monthly visits to Allard were a small and mildly annoying interruption of the great dialogue on which she and Stash were embarked until February. That day Dr. Allard bent over Francesca’s belly with his stethoscope for an unusually long time. Afterward, in his consulting room, he was more cheerful than this perpetually jovial man had yet been.

“I believe we have a surprise for the Prince,” he announced, almost bouncing in his chair. “Last month I was not completely certain so I said nothing, but now I am. There are two distinct heartbeats, with a difference of ten beats a minute. You are carrying twins, my dear Princess!”

“A surprise for the
Prince?
” Francesca’s voice rose in astonishment.

“Is there no history of twins in your family then?” he asked.

“History? I don’t … no, no history. Doctor, is there anything special … is it harder to have twins … I can’t believe … twins … you’re
sure
? Don’t you have to make an X ray to be sure?”

“I would prefer not to do so yet. Perhaps next month. But both heartbeats are there, each quite separate, so there can be no doubt.” He beamed at her as if she had just won a gold medal. Francesca was unable to sort out her feelings. It was almost impossible to imagine the reality of one baby, let alone two. Lately she had been dreaming of a baby, always a boy, who lay in her arms looking a great deal like Charlie McCarthy, and spoke to her as if he were an adult—happy, funny dreams. But two!

“So, my dear Madame,” the doctor continued, “you will now come to see me every two weeks for the next month and then, just to be on the safe side, once a week until the babies begin to manifest a desire to enter the world. Yes?”

“Of course.” Francesca hardly knew what she was saying. Suddenly the bewitched dream of her world had been destroyed as easily as an iridescent soap bubble. She wanted only to leave and drive back to the villa and try to absorb this invasion, this new reality.

The entire chalet beat rapturously to the rhythm of the news. Twins! Stash, in his incredulous delight, hadn’t been able to resist telling his valet, Mump, almost immediately. Mump had told the housekeeper, the housekeeper had told the chef, the chef had told Masha, who, bursting with excitement, ran to find Francesca in the library and reproached her mistress for not having announced the news herself.

“I should have been the first to know, Princess. After all … and now everyone knows about it, right down to the old laundry women and the men in the stable.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Masha, I
didn’t
even know it myself until yesterday. Why, oh why, do you all gossip so much?”

“Gossip? Why, Princess, we never gossip. We only say what we have happened to overhear or observed or have been told.… That’s not gossip!”

“Of course not. Now Masha, we’re going to need twice as much of everything now. Two layettes, dear God, even
one seems too much! Bring me some paper please, and I’ll start making lists.”

“I think the Princess should lie down,” Masha insisted.

“Masha, the Princess has work to do!”

February and March passed gaily, except for Francesca’s ever increasing discomfort. At night she could lie only on her side, Stash behind her. Often, for hours, he stayed pressing closely the fragrant length of her body, his arms around her so that he could feel the movements of her swollen belly.

“They push you like two little horses,” Stash murmured proudly. “When I was a baby Masha used to tell my mother that she had never heard of a child who suckled with such strength. She said no man had dared to treat her with such impudence, not even the one who gave her a bastard. My God, imagine two like me!” He gave a lofty chuckle.

Francesca smiled to herself at his absolute conviction that he was simply going to be reproduced in miniature, not just once but twice.

He took it for granted that the babies would be no less than extensions of himself. Already he had made plans to teach them to ride and ski, as if they would be born at the age of four, each a precocious Hercules.

One day, during the third week of April, Francesca’s back ached particularly badly. That night she woke up as if she had been tapped on the shoulder in the dark. “Who …?” she said, not really awake, and then she knew. “Well … well … what do you know?” she asked herself in a whisper and lay quietly, waiting. Half an hour later, after two more contractions had gripped her, she woke Stash gently.

“It’s probably nothing, darling, but Doctor Allard said to phone him if anything happened at all. This must be false labor, nothing to get excited about, but would you call him for me, please?” She felt shy about waking the doctor in the middle of the night.

Woken from depths of sleep, Stash jumped out of bed with the instant reactions that had become second nature in the RAF.

“Wait, it’s not a scramble—take it easy,” Francesca said, basking in a feeling of heightened well-being.

Stash returned from the phone in a minute.

“The doctor said to come to the clinic immediately. Here’s your coat and your handbag … oh, your boots.”

“I’ll brush my teeth and pack a nightgown and …”

“No,” Stash ordered, bundling her into her coat and bending down to put her bare feet into her fur-lined boots.

“At least wake somebody and tell them we’ve gone,” Francesca gasped.

“Why? They’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“I feel as if we’re eloping.” Francesca’s laugh spilled out as she watched Stash plunge into his clothes. She continued laughing quietly as he led her through the quiet villa to the garage, clumsy as he tried to support her weight when she was perfectly capable of walking by herself.

By the time they reached the clinic Dr. Allard and his chief assistant, Dr. Rombais, were waiting for them right inside the door. Francesca was surprised to see her dapper obstetrician dressed in loose white pants and a matching smocklike top. She had never seen Dr. Allard without a vest immaculately piped in white under his excellently tailored jacket.

“So, Princess, we may have less time to wait than we thought,” he greeted her, with his usual cheer.

“But it’s too soon, Doctor. It must be false labor. You said not till May,” she cried.

“Perhaps that is all it is,” he agreed, “but we must make sure, must we not?”

From then on everything else was forgotten as Francesca was settled into a bed with side rails on it. As soon as she was comfortable Allard entered and closed the door behind him.

Allard knew his statistics. Any woman faced with the delivery of twins faces a twofold or threefold increase in the possibility that the birth will be fatal to her. However, this remote chance was not his chief concern, although his operating-room staff was prepared for all possibilities. Francesca was not exhibiting high blood pressure or any signs of a toxic condition. However, by his calculations, labor was five, perhaps even six weeks premature, and under such circumstances, particularly with twins, he had every reason to be cautious.

“Well,
Maman
,” he said after he had examined her. “The great day is here.” Allard always called women in labor
“Maman,”
feeling that it focused their minds on the future rather than the present.

“So it’s not false labor?”

“Indeed, no. You are well on your way, but we must expect a certain number of hours to pass. After all, this is your first delivery, even if you are a bit early.”

After the next half-hour of contractions, Francesca’s calm acceptance of her physical discomfort began to disintegrate. Fun was fun, she told herself, but this was really hurting. There was no way in which she could visualize herself playing the role of a woman in labor. She was
in
it for real and she wanted to be out of it, and fast

“Doctor Allard, could I please have something for the pain? I’m afraid I need it now.”

“Alas, no,
Maman
, in your case we must avoid giving you any drugs.”

“What!”

Beaming as if he were giving her good news he continued, “Anything I gave you now would affect the unborn babies adversely. It would be passed along to the babies through your bloodstream. Because you are more than a month early, they still have not reached their proper weight. To be frank, I can give you nothing at all …”

“No drugs!”
Francesca was pale with terror. Like generations of American women, her idea of childbirth without drugs was firmly based on the long and fatal agony of Melanie Wilkes in
Gone With the Wind
.

“It is for the best,
Maman
, much for the best.”

“But, my God, for how long?” she asked.

“Until you are ready to deliver the little ones. Then I can give you a saddle block and from then on you will feel no pain at all.”

“A saddle block? My God, what’s that?” she gasped in horrified apprehension.

“Merely a painkilling injection,” he explained, thinking it best not to add that it was administered into the fourth lumbar interspace of the spinal column. The Princess was agitated as it was, without exact explanations.

“But Doctor, can’t you use a saddle block now?” Francesca implored him.

“Alas no. It might stop the labor and your babies want to be born,
Maman.
” He was kind, but she knew then that absolutely nothing she could say would move him.

“Doctor, why didn’t you tell me about this before? It just seems incredible that with modern medicine …”
Francesca stopped, unable to adequately express her outraged, fearful disbelief.

“But you are having premature twins,
Maman
. Modern medicine calls for precisely these measures.” The doctor took her hand and stroked it paternally. “I will leave my head obstetrical nurse with you now, but I will be in the next room. If you need me or want me for anything, just tell her and I will come at once.”

“The next room? Why can’t you stay here?” Francesca begged, terrified at the idea of his leaving her for any length of time.

“For my catnap,
Maman
. Tonight I have already delivered two babies. You must try to relax completely between contractions—I strongly advise that you take a catnap, too.”

The next eight hours passed in a kaleidoscope of emotions: physical anguish of a kind never experienced or dreamed of, which left no time for thought; anger that this was so much worse than she had expected; raging euphoria
tinged
with the knowledge that it would only last until the next contraction; fear, like that of a swimmer realizing that the tide is too strong and all hope of fighting it is gone and, above all the other emotions,
triumph
which painted those hours in their single unforgettable light; triumph at being fully alive, totally involved with every atom of her mental, moral and physical resources engaged in the most important work of her life.

Francesca endured without medication, helped only by the constant encouragement of the two doctors and the many nurses who came and went, busy with examinations which she soon disregarded entirely. When she saw the two orderlies appear with the cart on which they were to roll her into the delivery room, she was too dazed to realize what they had come for.

On the delivery table, Dr. Allard waited until Francesca was between contractions. Then he helped her to a sitting position for the saddle block. Afterward, she was placed flat on her back with a pillow under her head. The complete relief of pain, as astonishing as a clap of thunder, was so extraordinary that Francesca was startled and alarmed.

“I’m not paralyzed, am I, Doctor—it’s not that, is it?”

“Of course not,
Maman
—you are doing wonderfully.
Everything is going just as it should. Relax, relax … we are all here for you.” He bent over her for the hundredth time with his stethoscope, listening for the fetal heartbeats.

“Oh, this is heaven …” Francesca sighed.

Although the delivery room contained Allard and Dr. Rombais, as well as three nurses and an anesthesiologist, silence was the rule for the next forty minutes except for Allard’s instructions to Francesca. Allard’s team were trained to work together without speaking, by eye and hand signals, since it was his belief that women giving birth were more than normally alert to any spoken words and almost certain to misinterpret them. “Remember,” he would say to his staff, “a
Maman
may look unconscious under anesthetic but the sense of hearing is the last to go—say nothing.”

After forty minutes Francesca was once again conscious of pain, but of a greatly diminished degree.

“Doctor, Doctor,” she murmured, “I think the injection is wearing off.”

“No, indeed—we are merely coming to the end,” he reassured her in the most jocund of tones. “Now, when I say push, bear down as hard as you can. You won’t feel the contractions but I can see them, so you must obey my instructions.”

In another ten minutes Francesca heard him grunt in satisfaction. Almost immediately she heard the cry of a baby.

“Is it a boy?” she whispered.

“You have a ravishing daughter,
Maman
,” answered Allard, hastily handing the baby to Dr. Rombais who carefully clamped its umbilical cord. Allard plunged back to his position between Francesca’s thighs. The nurse who was monitoring the fetal heartbeats had just indicated urgently to him that the heartbeat of the unborn child was becoming slower. He saw, to his consternation, that the amniotic fluid which still appeared was yellow green in color instead of clear. The heartbeat of the second twin was growing slower every second. Allard palpated Francesca’s uterus and discovered that it had gone completely rigid. All contractions had stopped. He signaled vehemently at Dr. Rombais to put immediate pressure on Francesca’s fundus, the uppermost part of the uterus, while Dr. Allard squeezed with all his might on her now boardlike
uterus. Using all the force at his command, he manipulated the second twin down the open birth canal into a position from which he could deliver it with forceps.