In The Beginning

Katrina clenched her teeth as the wave set over her body again, "Aargh!"  This labor was hard.  "Something's wrong," she thought.  "It doesn't feel right, but-" and the white bedroom went black again as she screamed in pain.

"Something's not right," said the midwife.  She whispered heavily to Eric, "She's got to go.  There's simply too much blood and she's just got to go."

Eric looked at Katrina.  Her curly brown hair had gotten so full and beautiful for the pregnancy, but she lay in a twisted, sweaty mess on their white bed sheets, trying to push their son out to no avail for at least thirty hours and she was getting tired.  Her green eyes were bloodshot in contrast to her very white skin.  She had lost a lot of blood.

Katrina turned her head toward her husband between contractions and gritted her teeth, "No!  You know what- ARGH!"  They were coming far too frequent and erratically, now.

Katrina could hear her husband whispering, or was it pleading, in her ear, "They won't know," and his hand squeezed to pull her out of it once more, "Just don't say anything.  Act normal and maybe they won't know.  Katrina?  Katrina!"

"Katrina?"  The doctor's gravely voice brought her to with a start.  "I am Dr. Hadrik.  You've lost a lot of blood.  We're giving you fluids to bring your blood pressure up, but I'm afraid you won't be able to give birth vaginally.  We need you to sign these papers to perform a cesarean section and save your baby's life."

She looked around to find herself in a hospital, not in her safe home.  Slightly panicked, she searched for her husband, whom she found nodding to her from behind the doctor, as if to say, "It's okay.  Just sign the paper."

After the paper was signed, they had about ten minutes to catch up.  Apparently, the baby was in and out of distress and they weren't sure if it was from a long, hard labor or something else.  Either way, they were about to meet him, face to scrunched up little face.

"I am Jason and I will be your anesthesiologist for the evening," a young man in baby blue scrubs cheerfully said.  "I'm betting you want to be awake for this."

Katrina and Eric smiled at one another as they felt the luminous joy of parenthood peaking.  Still, there was the fact that they were most certainly on the list.  What would happen if they couldn't take their son home?  They'd planned the whole pregnancy, followed every best practice method for keeping out of the hospital and off the list from the moment they'd found out; however, no amount of preparation could erase their activism.  Activists were always red listed.

The State Automated Child Welfare Index (SACWIS) had started out as a way to prevent child abusers from fleeing with at risk children, but it had very quickly grown into a witch hunt for anyone who opposed certain politicians.  It started with the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), Clinton's Adoption and Safe Family Act, and grew into a license to parent your own children. http://www.infowars.com/a-license-to-parent-your-own-children/

Since all of the states linked up and began snagging just about every child with parents who had any sort of a hit in SACWIS, activists, prior foster children and anyone who ever protested in any respect began having home births.  Obama Care had eventually passed and, deep in it's miles of paperwork was buried a few technicalities that if you had a baby on the public healthcare's dime, then you agreed to have your home checked by Child Protective Services (CPS) and to be ran through SACWIS before you were allowed to take your newborn home.  If you were a hit, anything from immediate and complete severance of your parental rights to parenting classes would be assigned.  Nobody wanted to take the chance.

Juvenile Dependency Court judges all sat on the boards of directors to some Child Protective Services contracted charity in their area.  All the charities had to do to ensure a steady stream of kids would go to their privatized fost/adopt agency was give the judges a nice "award" for their efforts "in the best interest of the children" that could have been anything from a luxury vehicle to money.

Obama also saw to it that all Americans were forced into his public medical care program so that nobody was left out of the screening process.  Oh, sure, there were loopholes, like home birth, but those were getting tighter and tighter every day.  As it stood, more than fifty percent of children were in the foster care system or adopted in the United States.

This hospital birth was putting a damper on things.  Katrina was a journalist and Eric was a prior foster dependent.  Both guaranteed a hit in SACWIS.