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Show CHRYSALIS PAGE 27 wasn't fair that I should have to endure this while Mark sat calmly in the chair by the bed. I grasped for his hand. "Just hold my hand. Tighter. Yes, like that. Oh!" I relaxed but continued to hang on. "There. I made it through another one. Wow!" I tried the book again. ". . .on the third or fourth day. Most physicians will put the baby to the breast sometime during the first twenty-four hours after -" I stopped reading and dropped the book to the bed, thinking nothing, nothing is worth this pain. I'm so tired. I tried a joke. "I think I've changed my mind. I don't want a baby after all." Bad joke. A smiling nurse arrived, lifted my gown and stabbed me with a needle. With the edges of the pain dulled, I dozed. I_ know you, I've lived with you for nine months. Two masked nurses wheeled me to the table and Mark smiled, assuring me he was there, that everything was all right. I saw myself in a mirror, spread into the stirrups, beside a huge round fluorescent light. "Push!" Doctor Sontag's voice came from the bottom of a well. "Push! Look, the head's crowning." "I am pushing, dammit." I said indignantly, pushing. I half sat up. In the mirror I saw the baby's head, dark and glistening. |