“
At some point I tried willing things along, mentally focusing on a rapid delivery. That didn't work. I got up to walk around-walking is supposed to help you progress-then quickly got back in the chair.
“Argh!!!!!” I groaned. And other stuff.
The way I saw it, my baby should have been out by now, shaking hands with his dad and passing around cigars to the nurses. But he apparently had other plans. Labor continued very slowly.
Very slowly.
We were in that room for eighteen hours. That was a lot of contractions. And a lot of PG versions of curse words, along with the X-rated kind. I may have invented a whole new language.
Somewhere around the twelve-hour mark, Chris asked if I’d mind if he changed the music, since our songs had been playing on repeat for what surely seemed like a millennium.
“Sure,” I said.
He switched to the radio and found a country station. That lasted a song or two.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I need Enya. I’m tuned in to it, and it calms me…ohhhhh!”
“Okay. No problem,” he said calmly, though not quite cheerfully. I’m sure it was torture.
Chris would take short breaks, walking out into the waiting room where both sides of our family were waiting to welcome their first grandchild and nephew. He’d look at his dad and give a little nod.
“She’s okay,” he told everyone. Then he’d wipe a little tear away from his eye and walk back to me.
Chris said later that watching me give birth was probably the most powerless feeling he’d ever had. He knew I was in pain and yet couldn’t do a whit about it. “It’s like watching your wife get stabbed and not being able to do anything to help.”
But when he came into the room with me, his eyes were clear and he seemed confident and even upbeat. It was the thing he did when talking to me from the combat zone, all over again: he wasn’t about to do anything that would make me worry.
I, on the other hand, made no secret of what I was feeling. An alien watermelon was ripping my insides out. And it hurt.
Whoooh!
Suddenly one of the contractions peaked way beyond where the others had been. Bubba had finally decided it was time to say hello to the world.
I grabbed the side rail on the bed and struggled to remain conscious, if not exactly calm.
Part of me was thinking, You should remember this, Taya. This is natural childbirth. This is beautiful. This is what God intended. You should enjoy this precious moment and remember it always.
Another part of me was telling that part to shut the bleep up.
I begged for mercy-for painkillers.
”
”