A long time ago in 1982, I was an obstetrics resident at the Royal Victoria Hospital.
I was just beginning to realize that I was not destined to be an ob-gyn. So, I was not very happy then. Yet, there were some very special moments. I remember Christmas that year as very magical. The Woman’s Pavilion of the Royal Victoria used to sit on the very crest of the southern face of Mount Royal. From the windows of the old case room you could see the whole city, the river and over to the South shore. It is perhaps the best vantage point anywhere in a city of beautiful views.
Being Jewish I have always worked on Christmas. Having no family obligations, I always have fun at the parties people put on in the hospital. When I worked emergency, I always preferred the people suffering from indigestion and loneliness who showed up at Christmastime to the obnoxious drunks and driving disasters of New Years Eve.
That year at the Vic, I was on call Christmas Eve. The cracked paint and dull walls of L&D were hung with garlands and ornaments. We were busy, working steadily and quietly through the day. There were, of course, no elective inductions or C-sections and with less interference than was usual, things went smoothly. The coffee shop was closed and the cafeteria too far away to get to but there were enough oranges and chocolate at the nurses’ station to fend off starvation.
By evening, things had quieted down and there were no other patients left in L&D when a young woman walked in, in good labour. It was snowing heavily outside. As I admitted her, I noticed that the patient and her husband were streaming wet from the heavy snow melting from their coats. The young couple walked up the hill from their home because there were almost no buses running and they did not have money for a cab. We helped the young mother into bed.
The orderly looked at the husband who was sitting wet and miserable and anxious. “One minute” he said and disappeared with the coats and clothes. A minute later he reappeared with a towel, a set of hospital greens for the father and, from his own locker, a pair of dry socks. “Where did you put the clothes?” asked the nurse. “In the sterilizer” he said “I’ll just run it a short time to dry their things out.”
The patient laboured throughout the evening. In between contractions they told us that they were refugees from South America. They told the story of their adventures, their close escapes, their trip across the desert—on a donkey, no less. They sought refugee status in the United States and were refused and so they pushed on to begin their new life in Canada.
By 11:30, the patient was fully dilated and pushing. I went out to get a cup of coffee and give my contribution to the Christmas Réveillon we were having in the nurses’ lounge. Everyone was supposed to bring a traditional dish from their country. I had brought tsimmes, the sweet carrot dish that I usually made at Passover. I thought it would go well with other Christmas foods. In the nurses lounge the table was crowded with dishes from the four corners of the earth. There were meatballs, baked ham, curry, pancit, egg rolls, samosas and Linzer torte. I grabbed an egg roll and went back to the delivery room. By this time the baby’s head was crowning. Finally, a vigorous baby with a full head of black, black hair and beautiful features mirroring her parents was born. From the other room we could hear everyone singing. “Il est né le divine enfant.” We finished and left the new family and washed up and joined the party.
A little while later, I went to check on the patient, she was sleeping comfortably, the baby wrapped up snoozed in its cot. The husband in his borrowed greens was snoring softly with his head on the stretcher. I stopped and looked out the limestone lined window. The snow had stopped, the night was clear and silent. A great lopsided moon grinned a Cheshire cat smile in the star-filled sky. I looked down through the lacework of snow-covered trees, to the peaceful, sparkling lights of Montreal. How beautiful, I thought, how beautiful.