A Birth Story - Pt. III

Pt. I Pt. II Pt. III

1:30 PM : Really, really awful pain is a lot like really, really fantastic sex. You'll have to bear with me on this one.

When ratcheted up to a certain level, both agony and ecstasy become more than physical sensations, or even smorgasboards of sensation. Sometimes it's with a wail, sometimes it's with a whisper... but eventually, it all goes supernova. Walls are vaporized, lines of demarcation char and flake away. What you're feeling is everything, everywhere. A whole world in a cramped single bed. Indianapolis to Indochina in the creases of the sheets.

It is a plane of existence with overeager hands and sharp fingernails. All your running, writhing and caterwauling only tighten its grip.

In the case of pleasure, of course you want to press against it. Tension begets tension, and tension is delicious. Friction begets friction, the kind that urges you a little deeper down the rabbit-hole, that twists your hair a bit tighter around its fist.

This is not a sex story, however. That was nine months ago. It is now a labor story, and to say that the context has changed would earn you the Understatement of the Year Award, as well as a soul-cauterizing stare of incredulity from our protagonist.

Three and a half hours have passed. "... in the blink of an eye" wouldn't be exactly right… nor would "... the longest fucking three and a half hours not directed by James 'Mammoth, Barnacle-Encrusted Ego' Cameron".

The fourth dimension has lost all importance (as have the other three, the bastards). People, places, things... irrelevant. World events? Of no consequence. There is only pain – pain which cannot be described as "sharp", "dull", "achy", "crampy"... really, by any term other than "omnipresent". Movie villains are perpetually threatening to administer "a world of pain". It would appear that I've relocated to said locale.

Mere minutes after the first squirt of Pitocin trickled down my IV, I thought, "Oh... fuck. Not in Kansas anymore!" A few seconds after that? "Okay, champ... so how do we hold it together until we get back to the farm?" Yes, my conscious mind talks like a high school football coach. It gives my superego the occasional hearty ass-slap, too.

You don't fight against the pain. That would exacerbate it a hundredfold. You don't tense - feel those fingers against your trachea? Do you really want them to dig any deeper? You don't cry, scream, rend your hospital gown or fling your whale song CD across the room like a rainbow-festooned throwing star.

You make like Modest Mouse - you float on. You make like Jeff Spicoli - you surf. You make like Ron Jeremy and you ride that bitch... as long. And as hard. As it fucking takes.

How I discovered this, I haven't the slightest idea. Luck and desperation, most likely. But for the past few hours, I've relaxed my body, focused my mind and managed to perch atop the wave of contractions. I'm still in the ocean. But thankfully, amazingly, I'm not going under.

Balance? Not me. Born a klutz. Perpetually speckled with bruises. Fear of drowning and Dodge Caravan-sized squid kind of precluded surfing. Never really cool enough to mount a skateboard. Failure to master the art of skipping earned me amazed scorn and a "NEEDS IMPROVEMENT" from my preschool gym teacher.

And yet here I am. I've found the balance. Didn't even bash my forehead against the doorjamb while looking for it.

Breathe, relax, be still. Be quiet. Go inward. Totally in. Ouroburos ain't got nothing on you. Breathe.

Breathe.

Medical personnel wander in and out. They adjust the electronic fetal monitor, ask questions I refuse to answer and increase my Pitocin levels. Baby-Daddy hovers, anxious, sympathetic and (thankfully) silent. I surf the pain, primarily from the confines of my bed. Visits to the bathroom, while soothing (lots of cool tile and industrial disinfectant), are curtailed by the nurses ("Let's try to keep these trips closer to five minutes than fifteen", chastizes one).

Amazingly, even from deep within the maelstrom of pain, my elementary school Voice of Shame is still quite audible.

"YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE NOT TO POOP WHILE PUSHING!" it instructs at one point, "THAT WOULD BE EVEN WORSE THAN THE TIME YOU DRANK TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE MILK BEFORE LIBRARY HOUR AND WOUND UP PEEING YOURSELF AGAINST THE CARD CATALOGUE!"

"IS YOUR BUTT HANGING OUT?" it inquires at another point. I'm on the floor, on my hands and knees, rocking back and forth and counting backwards by fives.

I was walking back to bed following an illicit bathroom break; the pain spiked before I got there. Voice of Shame is highly amused. "I THINK YOUR BUTT'S HANGING OUT! WATCH OUT, FOLKS, THERE'S A FULL MOON OVER THE LABOR PAVILION!", it crows. "Seventy-FIVE, seventy, sixty-FIVE, SHUT UP!", I say.

After a few minutes, I pull myself back upright. I clumsily remount the bed. I prop myself up on my hands. I relax, and I breathe.

1:50 PM : Garbo ain't got nothin' on me. After hours of nothing but hissed breaths and tiny sighs, I finally speak.

"This... can't... continue," I tell Baby-Daddy. My face is chalk-white, my eyes wide. I've been surfing, surfing hard... and suddenly, without warning, I feel like I'm about to be pulled under. A few minutes ago, I inadvertently tensed up; the pain became indescribably worse. I'm worried that I won't be able to stop myself from doing it again. It's going to happen. And it's going to swallow me.

"You want me to tell the doctor?" he asks, taking my hand. I nod mutely.

1:55 PM : "Let's see if you're dilated enough for an epidural!", chirps Dr. Professional, "Hopefully you'll be up to four or five, so we can get the anaesthesiologist in here". Dr. Professional is an older woman, tidy gray crewcut, all business. She lays me flat, splays my legs... and emits a very uncharacteristic cluck.

"What do you know?", she says, "You're at nine centimeters!"

Huh, I think, that would certainly explain a lot.

Extricating her rubber-gloved hand from my Love Canal, Dr. Professional pauses for a moment. "Whenever you feel like pushing, you just let us know," she says.

Pushing? Pushing, meaning I push out a baby? And this horrific process will be over? My body doesn't feel like pushing... my body feels nothing but wretchedness. My mind, however, ever the sensible party, is settled.

"Now," I say, "I want to push NOW."

TO BE CONTINUED...