She only stopped when the head doctor came over, a tall Indian man. His face was gravely serious. Some people’s faces always look this way, it’s just how they’re raised. But as he talked it became clear he wasn’t one of these people. Meconium was repeated several times; I remembered the word from birth class: excrement. Meconium has been aspirated leading to PPHN. Or PPHM. He was talking slowly but it wasn’t slow enough. Nitric oxide. Ventilator. We nodded again and again. We were actors nodding on TV, bad actors who couldn’t make anything look real. He finished with the words closely
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