Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Yes, Richard, twins! Can you believe that?… I’m not sure….yes, they are in the same womb, but I don’t think they have implanted yet… Oh, yes, absolutely! You have one ready?…Perfect, I don’t think they could both grow normally in the same one, we would run a significant risk of them being very small at birth…Of course, but do hurry. I don’t expect that it will take much longer for them to implant….see you then”
Dr. Welling hung up the phone slowly, still contemplating what Dr. Wodrich had proposed. He wasn’t real sure why Richard would have a second artificial womb already prepared, but it seemed that it was a very lucky coincidence that he did, and so he didn’t think much of it. Dr. Wodrich had been interested in ectogenesis for quite some time and would have a perfectly good reason for having one in his lab, either undergoing experiments or some sort of testing. Besides, Dr. Welling thought that he owed Dr. Wodrich something for all of the time and effort spent working on this project, all which had to be done off the books and on his own time. Giving him one of the children that they had created together seemed to be a perfect way of showing his gratitude.
As the days passed into weeks, and the weeks passed into months, Dr. Welling’s interest in the growing child grew exponentially. He began to think of the child as his own, and was ecstatic to learn that the child was a boy. He also noted that the child grew with no complications, as if it were in a real woman’s womb, needing no interventional medications or even any nutrition outside of the concoction already being given. When the child reached seven months gestational, Dr. Welling could be found spending nearly every spare minute either reading to him or carrying on a one sided conversation. During one of these conversations, Dr. Welling was pacing the room talking to his child as much as to himself. Mid-sentence, he paused and looked up at a monitor showing an internal image of the baby and was astonished to look up at Baby to find him looking back. In disbelief, Dr. Welling walked closer to the apparatus and started talking again. As he moved, he could see the child move slightly to face towards the sound of his voice.
At nine months to the day after the initial fertilization of the egg, at 4am, Dr. Welling woke up again and decided to just get out of bed and head for the shower. It had been a very restless night; he had tried to go to bed and ended up waking up every hour or two in his excitement. As he turned on the water, he chuckled at himself and the feeling he had, like a child going to Disneyland for the first time.
Although the appointment he had made with Dr. Wodrich for the birth was not until 8am, Dr. Welling couldn’t contain his enthusiasm any longer and arrived at work at 630. To his pleasure, Dr. Wodrich’s car was already in the parking lot. They had agreed to perform the “C-section” on each artificial womb in their offices respectively, as transportation of either of the devices proved to become more difficult as the fetuses grew.
“Good morning, Dr. Welling! I see I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping this morning” Dr Wodrich greeted Dr. Welling as he entered the building, embracing him warmly.
“I was afraid I would have to call you to wake you up this morning” Dr. Welling replied with a smile. “Are you ready to start, or shall we wait until 8?”
As a reply, Dr. Wodrich opened the door to the room where the procedure was to take place. Dr. Welling stepped in to find the area ready for the procedure, from the draping down to the instrumentation. He could understand Dr. Wodrich’s eagerness, and smiled at him in appreciation. Dr. Welling started by opening the valve that would release the fluid surrounding the uterus that was being used to both keep the uterine tissue alive as well as provide nutrients to the child. They both sat down on opposite sides of the container holding the artificial uterus and each of them slowly released the latch holding the sides together. As a single motion, they each took half of the container away and slowly eased them to table.
On the table in front of them now lay only a layer of tissue separating the child from the world outside. With a sense of urgency, Dr. Wodrich handed Dr. Welling a scalpel. Dr. Welling quickly unplugged the electronic components of the internal monitors and made a precise incision to the uterus. He extracted the child, clamped and cut the umbilical cord, and began to clean the child off.
Having no children of his own, Dr. Welling let the physician side of his brain give way to his human side, and started realizing the joy and excitement any parent feels at the birth of their first child. He wrapped the baby boy in a small blanket and cradled him close to his chest. Dr. Wodrich patted him on the back and smiled. In that moment, Dr. Welling knew that he had never been happier in his life. It took him a few minutes of reveling in his own elation for him to realize that the child, while breathing normal, was not crying.
Dr. Welling looked down into the blue eyes of the baby boy and found that he could not look away. He had delivered several hundred babies in his career, but he found that he saw something in this baby’s eyes that he had never seen in the eyes of a newborn. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the connection that he had with this child or if there really was something else there. For several minutes he looked into those big blue eyes and contemplated whether or not what he saw was the glint of intelligence or just his imagination.