First Patient

Elizabeth Irvin

I decided I wanted to be a doctor in the pole barn at mid morning. All night the calf went down, down, down, tearing its way to the earth. Half inside and half outside like a cork perched at the edge of a bottle, he waited to be yanked free. The world turned briefly inside-out. He came out swollen and boggy, but writhing into damp straw and frozen dirt. Our human warmth rose to the rafters. We were in love at first sight not just with the wet calf but with the cow and the world for birthing something so big and delicate. A moment later, the barn contracted again, clamped down, and involuted. All quiet except for each breath from the cow on her side, heaving up her velvet belly. 

No one told me that it is always like this– that each new baby tearing down into the earth pulls back the curtain, undoes centuries of propriety, creates a portal, invents a new language, lands blood on your shoes

Elizabeth Irvin is a fourth year medical student at UMass Chan Medical School. This piece won 2nd place at the 21st Annual Gerald F. Berlin Prize for Creative Writing.