In order to have a c-section done, you apparently have to get a spinal block of some sort called an epidural. This is something that people often opt to have done when they do regular labor, but when it comes to c-sections, it is not optional. We weren’t planning on any anesthesia at all, but we were past caring about this. When our nurse saw our chart, she exclaimed, “Oh, you have Dr. Jensen — He’s a really good anesthesiologist; he’s been doing this a long time. You’ll like him.”

There was a knock at the door, “Pizza delivery!” Dr. Jensen had arrived. I wish I had a picture of him; I remember he was a tall guy, older, with unkempt white air. And he smiled a lot. He had a low voice and as he talked to Emily he always spoke in really slow, measured tones, as if mocking the seriousness of the procedure. “There are several terrible, horrible steps to this procedure: awful things that you will have to endure. The first horrible process is this: I am going to swab your back with iodine. It will feel wet and cold; you won’t enjoy it a bit.” Emly smiled and said “Okay. I’m ready.” As he worked he continued his slow and distracted conversation, in that same grave monotone: “I have to use all four swabs on my plate. I don’t know why there are four swabs… No-one ever explained that to me… I only know… that I have to use all of them.” Then he paused, frozen for a moment, turned to me and said, “Some things you have to accept by faith.” When he was done swabbing he leaned in and asked Emily, “How was that? Are you okay?” Emily said she was, so he replied, “Oh, good. I must have done it properly.”

This was the same odd manner he carried on with for the entire procedure, and every step went off without a hitch. At the end of each step, he would ask for confirmation that all was well. When Emily would invariably reply that it was, he would again repeat. “Oh, good. I thought I got it right…” or, “I must have got it right, then.”

What a fun guy. He clearly loves his job, too. He said he likes doing baby deliveries best. When I was in the operating room during the c-section, he was there, standing right beside me. He took it upon himself to talk me through the procedure. He made jokes about the doctors and talked about the paperwork he had to do. In the middle of filling out some paper or other he paused, looked up at me and said, “You don’t suppose anyone’s going to read this, do you? Maybe I should check my spelling…”