It was right about this time my eyes blinked awake to the awareness of an alien feeling of pressure. Sat straight up. I was barely 22. Only been married 10 months. I’d been told I’d need surgery to conceive. They lied. I was just as glad. I’d wanted a baby since toddlerhood.
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I climbed out of the bed & walked around a bit on feet I hadn’t seen from a standing position in weeks. Skinny legged with a belly as round as an Arkansas watermelon, I looked like a human tootsie pop in a yellow wrapper. I rubbed my lower back. Took a deep breath. It’d be today.
I showered & waited til it was daylight to awaken Keith. “I think I’m in labor.” He squinted at me. “You sure?” “Pretty sure.” He sat up on the side of the bed. “What do we do now?” I said “We get ready for church like regular. I need to go by & teach my Sunday school class 1st.”
It was a Sunday and I taught 6 grade girls. You couldn’t hand off 6 grade girls to just anybody. Anyway, nobody liked them but me. I was too young to know better and Keith was too young to know I didn’t know better. I did a good bit of pausing for reflection during the lesson.
On the way to the parking lot, I told him we would be fine but we’d not want to tarry. We swung back by our house and grabbed my suitcase. It had a gown and robe for my hospital stay and a dress and heels to wear home and 2 snuggly little sleepers washed with Downy for our baby.
Nothing in Houston is close. The hospital where we were registered to have our little one was about 45 minutes away. I was beginning to feel a bit compromised &, to be honest, annoyed at Keith. He was over there at the driver’s wheel looking especially darling swallowing a donut.
I’d be sitting on one for weeks. Pains were getting intense. “Think you could speed up a little?” He did. I started panting. Sweating. “Keith, you’re going to have to do better than that.” Sped up a bit more, maneuvering around traffic. I started Lamaze breathing. Woowoohee.
Something akin to an evil spirit lit upon me, my feet now on the dashboard, and I yelled, “DUDE, YOU STOP AT ONE MORE STOPLIGHT AND YOU’LL DELIVER THIS BABY IN THIS CAR.” That did the trick. He pulled into the ER since we’d waited too late. Said to 1st nurse, “The baby’s coming!”
I was writhing in pain. They put me in a wheel chair and flew me, big hair blowing in the wind, back to the examining room. Gloves and gowns were flying. Delivery room preparing. Nurse looks up from examination. “Mrs. Moore, you are two centimeters dilated.”
It was a long day.
It was a long day.
I’d been preparing for months for natural childbirth. Let me go on record to say there’s nothing vaguely natural about childbirth. I refused to take anything for pain because the birthing fad had swung to that extreme &, if you took drugs, your baby would grow up to sell heroin.
The baby got stuck in the birth canal right at the end and we went into trauma. People flying all over the room. Emergency saddleblock. Forceps. Tall dark and handsome Keith white as a sheet. Me, jerked nearly off the delivery table, them trying to get that baby out. And then...
There she was. Bloody and bruised and screaming for her mother. And her mother screaming for her. I had never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. I fell in love that day in a way I had never known it. Gave my heart away. Everything in my life had been so marred. But this.
“You’ve got you a baby girl, Mrs. Moore,” Nurse Ratched said but tenderly this time. “Yes,” I cried, “I do.” And I held her so close & kissed her wounded head & thought she was the most perfect little creature I’d ever seen in my life. That was 40 years ago today. Still in love.
Happy birthday, my darling @AmandaMoJo. The joy you have brought me cannot be measured in centimeters. I’ll pick you up at 9:30 this morning & we’ll party. And I will not stop at a single light to get there. Don’t feel the need to have me a corsage.
Oh Baby, I love you so much.
Oh Baby, I love you so much.
