Father and daughter

Despite the distance, very close…

After closing the door of the examination room, my eyes need to adjust to the relative darkness. When the lights are turned off, my attention is drawn to the images of a beautiful eleven-week-old baby on my ultrasound screen. Usually, our clients are together with their partner or a loved one at the appointment, but not today. Protocol dictates otherwise since we are in the Corona-crisis-mode.
Back to my little dark world. The mother is ready and anxious to take a look at the baby. We know each other; I accompanied the birth of her first child, a beautiful home birth.

My colleague is working next door, the sun shines in and lights up the room. The windows are even ajar to let spring in. My colleague runs office hours to check pregnant women. Due to the taken measures, the contact is short. Only the checks of blood pressure and the growth of the baby are done.  Further contact is by phone. We talk to pregnant women and answer questions or speak encouraging words, but the forced distance is frustrating.

There is a bench in front of our practice, which is always in the sun and you can sit there in a quiet street of Amsterdam. Suddenly there is a cheer coming from the bench. A man with his 2-year-old daughter is looking at his phone. Inside in the ultrasound room, a happy pregnant woman is lying with her phone in her hand. The heart beats!

My colleague in the doctor’s office is surrounded by the cheers, from inside and from outside, and smiles. Despite the distance, it all feels very close!