Only the short fluorescent bar over the sink was lit; most of the room fell into brown shadows. The placenta in its pink tub had been carried away. The sterile instruments were gone, and the deep-blue cloths. My bed projected into the room like a high, narrow bier. I was supposed to be resting. I felt tranquilized, or stunned. I didn't picture anything -- what the baby looked like or where she might be, or even Fred walking down the hall toward me, though I was waiting in this blank place for him to return. I did not think, If the baby has a problem I will feel x, if the baby is fine I will feel y. I could not imagine what was taking so long for Fred to come back, or anyone to bring me news, and I did not try to imagine. The nurse had cleaned up the room nicely, gathering bundles of bloody cloths, directing an orderly to mop the circles of blood on the floor. She'd placed a cup of ice water next to the bed. Now she sat in a low armchair, going through papers, making a note here and there. I closed my eyes. A wide fan of light opened them -- Fred was back. He held my hand. "She's on a respirator," he said.

I struggled to sit up halfway. "It's breathing for her."

"Yes."

"The doctor said?"

"He said we have to wait and see."

The room -- with its beige walls, reflective beige linoleum tiles, vinyl-upholstered chairs, steel sink-- felt sealed, too neutral. A good thing could happen here, or a bad thing. The room didn't care, the room wouldn't show a trace of it. I wanted out.

The blankness I'd kept so willfully had narrowed into a narrative line: First the baby was carried away by a nurse to be suctioned and cleaned up, then she wasn't brought back to me, and now a machine breathed for her. Where was the line going? What would the history be? I was in a train accident once, a derailment outside of Philadelphia, and what happened wasn't the worst -- the car turned on its side and was dragged along the tracks. The sensation of hurtling without limit had scared me most. "Maybe we should call my mother," I said. She ran the Washington, D.C., office of a pharmaceutical company. "She could call someone for advice."

"Right," Fred said, then whispered, "It's not as if Bismarck Hospital has a good reputation."

"Exactly."

When he left, I went into the bathroom yet again and commanded myself to pee, and finally I did. I would be released into the outside light soon.

"How much do you think you did?" the nurse asked.

I wondered how much I was supposed to do, and how you could calculate such a thing. "A quarter cup. "That was an acceptable amount -- she disconnected my IV line.

She called in the delivery nurse, who came in with Dr. Gregg. They picked up a clipboard holding birth information and a postpartum recovery checklist. Vital signs were stable, bleeding was normal, and voiding had been accomplished. The delivery nurse, plump, with short curly hair and round-framed glasses, resembled a child's stuffed owl. She'd spoken to our childbirth class for an hour on the process of labor. We must have looked nervous, listening closely, our chairs arranged in a perfect U. So serious, she'd teased us: You'll all survive. Now she ignored me. "You sign off here," she said to Dr. Gregg, raising the clipboard up high. Dr. Gregg held her body tall. Her straightened hair was styled in a smooth cap, her dark-brown skin gleamed. She hadn't spoken to me, except to say, Don't push yet. She tilted down and signed. I rested on the bed, watching them. They talked to each other as they left the room. Why didn't they speak to me, I wondered. Did they know how my baby was doing?

The delivery nurse came back in with a wheelchair, smiling, and said she would take me to see the baby. I said, "My husband's on the phone. He'll be right back."

She said, cheerfully, "Oh, let's go now." She helped me in and put a blanket over my legs. The skin of my arms was mottled pink with cold; I'd always disliked the transparency of my skin. Did we have to go now because the baby might not survive another five minutes? She pushed me into the hall. The rubber wheels on linoleum made a seamless whispering sound. The hall was empty. It was after 10 o'clock; the baby had been born two and a half hours before. We turned a corner and there were windows into a room on my right. She pushed me through a doorway into a reception area outside the intensive care nursery. I sat up straighter in the chair. "There's your baby," she said and pointed to a group of people in front of a high table.

Fred appeared beside me. "There she is," he said, and held my hand. He'd already been here. She lay on her back, with her limbs splayed and a thick plastic tube rising out of her mouth and curving away to a machine. It was hard to see, because the table was high, and on the other side of a window, and people dressed in blue scrubs clustered around adjusting machinery that flanked her table. Bright light shone down on her, on her body laid out flat, punctured with tubes. I couldn't see what her face looked like; I couldn't really see her hair.

The supervising nurse sat on a stool in the nursery, writing notes to be inserted in the medical record, which we would read months later. Our names were Fred and Kathryn; we were married, and English was our primary language. There had been no complications of pregnancy; the baby was delivered vaginally, with a delivery complication of meconium. The baby had grunted and flared her nostrils in an effort to breathe. Her body had been pink but her face was still blue when she arrived in the ICN. The baby could move all of her limbs, and was active, with a weak cry. Her immediate equipment needs were a ventilator and a warming bed.

"You can't go in right now, her settings are still being adjusted," the unit assistant told us. His blow-dried yellow hair gave off a lacquered shine. He held a black telephone receiver with his shoulder. "Come back in a few, you can sit with her," he said, then talked into the telephone. The anteroom was crowded with equipment, trash barrels, a scrub sink, a water dispenser; there was hardly room for the wheelchair. I felt I would cry. I turned to Fred at my side and said, "Let's go now. "Then I looked down at my lap so as not to see any more. He wheeled me out backwards, and down the hall.