How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane (7 page)

My due date came and went with not a contraction in sight, at which point a number of homeopathic “labor-inducing” tricks were employed. They included, but were not limited to:

       
•
  
Some vigorous nonsexual massaging of my perineum (again, sorry), mostly by me, but occasionally by husband, on days that he could be persuaded with the aid of beer, ice cream, and/or the promise of sexual activity at some later date, TBD.

       
•
  
The eating of a particular salad at a particular café in the San Fernando Valley said to guarantee labor within twenty-four hours. If “guaranteed labor” means uncontrollable gas for two days straight, then the salad was successful. Otherwise, it was not.

       
•
  
“Uneven walking”: the act of walking along a curb with one foot on the curb, the other on the street, in the style of a drunken sorority sister.

       
•
  
“Cervical sweeps,” an ob-gyn procedure/medieval torture by which one's doctor sweeps a gloved finger around the inside of one's bajingo, with the intention of “softening” or “ripening” the cervix, which, despite being a “natural,” homeopathic technique, leaves one feeling as though one is a ventriloquist dummy and that someone is reaching up into one's soul by way of one's vagina.

       
•
  
Sex. Lots and lots of it. Some good, some bad. Most of it very, very ugly.

       
•
  
Yelling “COME ON ALREADY!!!” directly at my navel.

Unfortunately, none of these methods seemed to work, and after two more noncontraction-filled weeks passed, my doctor recommended induction with Pitocin.

“Marvelous,” I said. “Let's get this party started so I can breathe this mo-fo out” (or words to that effect).

My doctor cautioned, “You should know that induction can be a little ‘intense.'”

“Yeah?” I interrupted. “Well, so can I. LET'S DO THIS!!!”

The doctor interrupted my interruption, “You should also know that most induced women,” 95 percent was the number he floated, “end up requesting an epidural
^*
to control the pain.” Sure, I thought. That's because 95 percent of women didn't spend five weeks listening to hypnosis tapes, learning how to breathe out their pain like wisps of multicolored smoke, or visualizing their babies rolling out of them like gentle waves of water.

I just smiled and said, “I'm not going to need the epidural. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine.” And then I patted his arm in my most confident, bordering-on-condescending way.

Induction Day.

We are in the labor room. I am feeling confident, alert, alive. Like a quarterback ready to run, catch, and spike my team to victory. This is a great day to have a baby, and I mean that in the most crunchy-granola way possible.

The doctor fills my IV with induction sauce, breaks my water, and informs me that the contractions should start any minute.

I stick my headphones in my ears, sit on my yoga ball, and begin to bounce while I wait for the first one, wondering whether it will feel like a wave or a surge, or maybe a strong splash? Luckily, I don't have to wait very long, because within thirty seconds the first contraction arrives, less like a surge or a wave and more like a canoe paddle being swung full force at the side of my head. My knees buckle, and I hit the deck with an all-over body sensation that is so intense the word
pain
does not do it justice; it requires a word that has not been invented yet, like
blundikad
or
krevdentious
. That's how beyond pain it is. It is
krevdentious
.

Sweat—not merely beads, but actual spigots of it—springs from every one of my pores, even as the contraction ebbs. From my mouth comes a yowl-y moan/scream, “EPIDUH-EPIDUH-EPIDUHHHHH,” and my husband, whose face now looks like that of a scared rabbit says, “The epidural team is coming. Please let go of my arm.”

But then, after I've had a few minutes to recover, in a startling turn of events that shocks even me, I tell my husband that no, I will
not
be needing the epidural. I just hadn't been
prepared
for that first one . . . Now that I
knew
what a contraction felt like, I was
sure
I could
handle
it.

I sit down on the yoga ball and brace myself for the next contraction that I am going to manage with the breathing and visualization exercises I've learned from Linneah.

In . . . Out . . . Gentle waves of water.

In . . . Out . . . Gentle waves of water.

In . . . Out . . . Gentle waves of water.

. . . And then the next canoe paddle wallops me upside the head and knocks me twenty thousand leagues under the sea, and that's when I reach for my husband with the strength of a rabid chimpanzee and instruct him to bring the epidural team to me within the next five minutes or I am going to tear the linoleum off the delivery-room floor and eat it.

Within minutes the team (there are two of them, and they work on me in tandem like a pair of circus acrobats) has me intubated, and they send the invisible canoe paddler on his way. From this point on, the delivery is a friggin party (the kind of party where people cheer when you poop on the table, anyway) and that's when the camera comes out.

Watching the video now, I feel so disconnected from those people on the screen. I don't remember any of it, even though consciously I know it happened, and there's plenty of proof—i.e., a small dictatorial human living in our house—to support that conclusion.

As I look at the image of my poor, poor crotch, so unaware of what is about to unfold . . . from its folds . . . I experience a level of discomfort probably not unlike what men must feel when witnessing other men being kicked in their baby-makers. I can't watch without wincing and squinting through one barely open eye, the way I might
watch the outtakes of a
Jackass
movie or scenes from
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
.

A blurry figure steps in front of the camera; I recognize it as my mother. My father, on the other hand, is not in attendance. This is probably for the best, as between the two of us, there has been no acknowledgment that I am, in fact, female.

My husband comments, “I forgot that part! Your mom stepped right in front of the camera—we almost missed the whole thing!” But to be honest, I am grateful to her backside for giving me even a brief reprieve from this Salvador-Dalí-melting-vulva horror show, the sight of which is now making me lightheaded.

“Okay, now I want you to push,” says the doctor.

I am straining and pushing as hard as I can, so intensely that I feel something is bound to pop out of me, if not this kid, then possibly one of my eyeballs, or my spleen through my now-cartoonishly stretched-out belly button.

I can see the doctor, distorted through the edges of my oxygen mask, framed between the V of my shaking legs. He is talking to the husband, gesturing toward the surface underneath my butt. They are both nodding approvingly. It's difficult to make out exactly what the doctor is saying, though I can just hear the words
good sign, large amount
, and
rectum
.

Several hours of fecal/fetal pushing go by, and still the not-so-tiny human stuck in my undercarriage refuses to come out. Nothing changes.

Until it does.

Now some serious-type drama is going down.

       
1.
  
The baby's heartbeat starts to drop. Quickly. Which causes:

       
2.
  
The machines to beep insistently and:

       
3.
  
The room to flood with doctors and nurses. In all the panic:

       
4.
  
The grandma-to-be leaves the room. As she passes the camera, it is clear that she is crying.

       
5.
  
And in the most clear indication that the shit is hitting the fan, the
Austin Powers
dvd is turned off.

The doctor says loudly and quite clearly that this baby has to come out now and that he is going to insert some sort of vacuum device inside my vagina to help ease her out. I say, “Okay,” but when I see the size of the device, it seems as doable as trying to fit a frisbee into a jar of mustard.