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Show Epilogue Aidan was born by a plunger, a fierce plastic instrument that sucked him from my body, his head bearing a red ring for days. I had kept him inside, knowing, maybe, the connection between birthing and breaking, not wanting him to leave me. As my body tried to push him out, part of me struggled to have him remain. I saw the intrusion of the doctor as failure on my part. A stronger woman would not have required the intervention. This was a story that felt familiar in its telling, a story that fit with the other failures I counted as my own. With my second son, I tried again. The labor was faster this time, my body knew the rhythms of birth, the surges that move like a wave across the sea. I remember thinking in the parking lot of the hospital as another contraction forced me to lean against the car and threatened to bring me to my knees that I didn't have to do this again. I could ask for drugs. Drugs that would block the pain, numb my body, cause me to forget. The idea that I did have choices reassured me, even as I knew I wanted to do it on my own. It took me a half hour to walk from the parking lot to the front desk, stopping every few minutes while my body broke open. Hours into the labor, the midwife broke my water. It was Mother's Day and she wanted to be home with her family. A faster labor was better for her, and, she argued, better for me. In my worn state, I agreed. Within seconds of piercing the amniotic sac- the sea inside me rushing out, warm and wet, meeting my thighs and the bed beneath me- - the need to push became insurmountable. And I became the animal that I am. 254 |
