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I
am lying in a used bed and
something is devouring my kidney. No—something is preparing
my kidney for consumption, slapping a spatula on it and
pressing full weight, like I'd prepare hamburger meat for a
McDonald’s-patty-look-a-like-grilling.
Slap! Press. And again.
I
wrench my husband’s hand, whisper
hoarsely, It’s got my kidney. He
feeds me an ice chip. I’m thinking, I
don’t think It’s supposed to get my
kidney???, and then I berate myself for calling my unborn son It. A nurse assures me in standard
hospital-worker trill that the kidney slapping is simply part of the
contractions I’m experiencing—a goofy sidekick (side-slap) pain to
heroic pain.
I’m thinking, Liar! These contractions
are period cramps on speed, so big and important they’d never tolerate
sidekicks. I assumed contractions would feel like getting stabbed with
an ice
pick, not at all like something familiar, but no matter how many
mothers tried
to fill me in, what isn’t surprising
about giving birth?
Slap!
Press. Ow.
I
am the only woman in the
maternity ward given an epidural that didn’t take (surprise!). As a
result my
legs are 300 pound beached seals, but my abdomen spews lava. My husband
feeds
me another ice chip. When I experience an uber
-period-cramp-contraction his
face is in mine, his green eyes mesmerizing explosions as he commands
me to
breathe. The Sybil is here and she suggests breathing with sound. I
try,
exhaling with an emotion-packed eeesh
and find that sound helps (surprise…). Eeesh, I say. EEESH! The cheesy
‘Arizona
Spa’ CD I picked up at Target, its mournful wooden flute notes backed
with electronic
strings, is helping, too. Between contractions I focus on the flute and
think But why my kidney, kid? Slap! Then it’s
time to breathe again.
Dr.
Epidural has been
summoned to the OR and refuses to return to fix what he will later
defend like
this: It’s because she’s so tall. I should have started the epi lower.
Eeesh.
Slap! Eeesh.
My
blood pressure has been
spiking since midnight. By the following noon, my contractions
stabilized at
two minutes apart. Three hours later, my contractions are still two
minutes
apart, but my cervix is stalled at two centimeters. Two out of ten. And
my
blood pressure is schizophrenic. My doc is not pleased. She
is flat
out prescribing the C word because of the P word. Pre-eclempsia. If I
progress
to the E word, I could have seizures. For the first time since the
contractions
really started hurting, my eyes tear up. I ask my doc what I’m doing
wrong. I
had a stellar pregnancy, especially for a woman over forty, passed the
vital
tests, but I’m failing at natural childbirth. I
tell her natural
childbirth
runs in my family. I tell her I want to
go through the pushing thing, even if the epidural never kicks in and I
continue to experience mutant period cramps. I ask her how
Pre-eclempsia
could happen. It’s because I’m
forty-two, right? I ask my doc and Nurse Nightmare gasps
and
clutches her throat. Oh my god, you’re forty-two? she cries. My doc
just shrugs
and says no one can predict these things. I’m conflicted and scared—I
skipped
the info about C-sections in What to
Expect When You’re Expecting because I was convinced the C word
would never
be a part of my birthing reality. I even left the C word off the
Birthing
Plan my husband and I submitted bashfully to my doc. Why, why didn’t I
read the chapter? Everyone is staring at
me,
waiting for me to decide, Nurse Nightmare, coming down from her shock,
nodding
the
answer she approves of. I’m the one on my back battling mercenary
period
cramps. I’m the one with It in my belly refusing to move and
I have to decide whether to C or not to C? I’m
just a
smalltime, forty-two year old (tall!) poet with one lowly chapbook and
a
half-written novel to her name. I’m no brain surgeon. I have writer’s
block! And plaque! What the hell do I know? My husband
and the Sybil tell me
they are for the C section. Suddenly, eeshing from another Slap!, so am
I.
Eeesh—doitdoitdoitdoitdoit!
I’m
in an episode of ‘Grey’s
Anatomy’, which I watched way too much of in the ninth month. I
remember all of
Addison’s worst case scenario pregnancy ER’s as I’m wheeled to the
operating
room, hostile lights flicking by overhead, a herd of labcoats
surrounding me,
masked, capped strangers quipping gibberish, my arms laid out in
crucifix formation,
then strapped down (in case I have a sudden, inexplicable urge to touch
my own
stomach), my hair shoved into a cap. An oxygen mask glides over my
face. I ask for
it to be removed because I’m going to barf. The crowd around my abdomen
makes
the first incision and suddenly my husband and the Sybil are with me,
stroking
my cheeks, squeezing my dumb, glacier hands. They wear standard ‘Grey’s
Anatomy’ intern gowns, caps and masks. Doped as I am, I note the
attention of
my cheerleaders flicking from my face to what’s going on behind the
curtain
obscuring my stomach from me. The second their eyes—all soft and mushy
and
reassuring—leave mine, they bug out with revulsion. But knowing my
husband and
the Sybil have a watch on my insides is comforting. That burning smell
isn’t,
though. I close my eyes, thinking, At
least It let go of my kidney.
My
doc quips: He’s turned the
wrong way.
Before I can panic, a voice shouts: Got him!
A
baby is crying—a sobbing
that is obviously pissed off. Everyone is saying: He’s huge! A nurse
brings him
around the curtain so I can have a peek before they take him for
clean-up.
I’ve
given birth to a
toddler.
A
red-faced kid is screaming
at me as if I should do something. I’m afraid to blink—if I do the
kid will
be a grown man telling me he’s ready to move out of our condo. My
husband is
beside himself, exclaiming that watching my son come into the world was
like
watching a rabbit being pulled from a hat. It was amazing,
unbelievable, a trick-of-the-sleeve,
he babbles through his mask. With frantic
jerks of
my head I order him to follow our irate son to the clean-up area. My
husband runs
off. The
Sybil stays with me as my abdomen is stapled.
A
shout from nether regions
of the operating room: Nine pounds, one ounce! Commotion from those at
the
operating table, from Dr. Epidural lurking somewhere behind my capped
head. Everyone
is making impressed sounds. At my final pregnancy check-up, my doc
predicted my
baby was around seven pounds. Now, as she staples me, she says he was
‘hiding’
his true size all this time. How could he do that? the Sybil asks,
reading my
pleading face.
This
is my doc’s answer,
delivered with the final staple: Because she’s so tall.
My
husband’s mask is pressed
to my lips. He is weeping. A nurse wields my son over me. A perfect
face with a
perfect pink mouth and precious nose and his eyes fast shut. I want to
weep
beautifully like they all do in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. I can’t take it in.
I’m
supposed to bond with my baby right now, but I’m too doped up, immobile
as a
cadaver.
All
I can say is: ooh-moo, which,
translated, means: I realize you’ve known me for about two seconds, but
I would
so appreciate it if you would please find it in your wee heart to
forgive me
for not bonding with you, my priceless newborn son.
I’m
being wheeled out of the
operating room. My son is also on the stretcher, between my sheeted
legs. Somebody
put a stripy cap on him, the only part of him I can see. I don’t take
my eyes
off that cap. I’m thinking, He’s all
aloooone! I will my legs to comfort him. Hey! Right leg! Pay
attention! Left leg! I realize you're numb, but come ON.
In the recovery room, to my joy, my son is introduced to my
right
breast. Finally, contact with my baby! He latches on immediately, the
epitome
of a La Leche League poster infant. That’s my boy! As he suckles
noisily, I
notice that he is so much smaller now, not a toddler at all—just a tiny
little
tiny little tiny little bee…
In
the post-partum room I’m
all lines and drips. They feed me ice chips and morphine. I still can’t
move my
legs. I can, though, keep the baby at my breast. I’m very, very good at
this. The
Sybil uses her index finger to make sure his wee nose isn’t blocked by
my balloon
boob. I hope the morphine isn’t lacing the colostrum. I try to tell
this to my
dazed, blissed-out husband, my true partner in crime and harmony and he
interrupts
me to whisper that he can’t believe we’re parents. We gaze at our baby.
My god—he
has hair! Ears! Nostrils! The Sybil takes pictures of the new family.
She
predicts I’ll definitely receive some poems from this birth stuff.
Hee-owm,
I
respond, which, translated, means: this incredible wee
wunderkind human
being is a poem, man, a living poem,
man, oh wow, wow, wow.
And
then I know, I know for a
fact that it’s true what they say about miracles—absolute,
heard-it-on-Oprah, yadda-yadda
cliché, but true.
They
breathe. They wail. They exist.
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