The worst case of stage fright I ever had was in the last few weeks of my first pregnancy. Several of us young lieutenants' wives were waiting in the wings at the same time, and one by one they each went into labor, with the ensuing horror stories that included words like "episiotomy" and "ruptured membranes". I wondered if it was too late late to outsource the whole idea of offspring.
They brought home their "bundles of joy" and I knew all those stories about labor were just the beginning. Sleepless nights, swollen breasts, hemorrhoids, colic—why hadn't we just stuck with a puppy? It's not like these things called babies were particularly cute, and I was pretty sure it would take more than a few weeks to housebreak one.
My stage fright worsened as my due date came and went. The butterflies in my stomach were hard to distinguish from the well-aimed kicks to the kidneys my infant delivered day and night. (A boy? A girl? A place kicker for the Saints?)
My doctor had been telling me for weeks it would be "any day now." I was already effaced, a term I wasn't familiar with. I imagined all sorts of stuff going on down there, though, and none of it was pretty. Finally, almost two weeks after my due date, he told me they'd "take the baby on Monday." I wasn't really sure what he meant, and was afraid to ask. Was this some sort of hostage rescue tactic obstetricians practiced in case they were recalled by their commando units? Plus I'd never had the chance to talk to him about anesthesia—I was afraid he'd correctly point out that I was a wimp and I should suck it up.
One day at the mall, where we'd gone to while away what we'd later nostalgically look back on as "free time", I noticed several strollers, all with babies tucked inside them. I took a quick look at the mothers: Yep, they looked okay, despite what I was sure was an unendurable ordeal. And then I had a particularly amazing insight (there are reasons humans are set apart from the other animals, and moments like this are one of them). I realized: We ALL had been born, to mothers who mostly lived to tell the tale (over and over, whenever two or more femmes enceinte are gathered). If nothing else, it was my time and place to suffer.
I sighed with relief. All this fear I had was silly, really, when put in such geo-political perspective.
Then my neighbor told me HER labor horror story, and I blanched. Monday was NOT a day I was eagerly awaiting, despite the fact billions and billions of babies had traveled the birth canal with no problemo.
On Monday I showed up at the hospital, and shortly after they'd inserted the Pitocin drip, the labor pains started. They weren't anything like I'd feared, at least for the first fifteen minutes. I even smiled indulgently at my husband, who was getting a kick out of watching the monitors they'd hooked me onto, thinking, no doubt, fatherhood came with some neat gadgets.
Then the whole thing went downhill, fast. None of those breathing techniques worked worth a damn, but screaming obscenities was surprisingly helpful. When the anesthesiologist poked his head in and asked if I'd like an epidural, I pulled my eyeballs back from where they'd rolled inside my forehead and glared at him. "Where the hell have you been?" I screamed. "Give me that needle! Give me the goddamned needle now!" Ten minutes later, I couldn't feel the labor pain or my legs, and I decided I'd make up my own labor horror stories. (Hey, it's not for nothing I'm a fiction writer!)
A couple of blissful hours later they deemed me ready to go into the delivery room, and after a brief bout of tug-a-war which my pelvis lost, the doctor announced I had a "big ole girl!"
She wasn't anything like those ugly babies I'd seen before; in fact, as I counted her gravel-sized toes and stroked her bald, misshapen head, I thought she was splendid.
Twenty years later, she still is.
Happy birthday, daughter.
