You Don’t Know Squat (Dylan’s Birth Story)
January 14, 2005
It’s fragile, this life. As I hold this infant, this life, at my breast, I think about the fact that I will never make the same mistakes my parents made. Never.
My nipples are burning. Literally. As much as I wanted to breast-feed and my sandal wearing, tree-hugging doctor insisted I try, I never thought it would hurt so much. The suction on this kid is like mine on a triple thick milkshake from McDonald’s. Damn that sounds good right now. I look at Daren, hoping I’ll catch his eye, smile sweetly and expect him to know what I want. He is staring at our newborn son, and comparing the size of Dylan’s head to my mammoth jugs. Thanks honey.
Dylan is perfect. His little corn kernel toes, his sweet little nose, and well the suction on that mouth, we know that works! Just 30 hours ago, the labour started at 4 a.m. on the dot. Well, if you ask Daren, labour started 3 weeks ago when I insisted we walk 3 hours a night and have lots of spicy food and clumsy sex. The night before labour started, Daren begged me to stay home from our walk and relax. I agreed, if he paint my toenails in Romance Pink so I would have pretty toes for the birth of our child. Not that I could see my toenails, but this was very important. Watching the man you love paint your toenails is one of the most romantic and most awkward things to see. We headed to bed that night, not knowing it was the last night of our childless lives together.
4 a.m. My eyes flew open and stared at the clock. Was that a pain because I have to pee? I close my eyes, hoping my bladder will just give me 5 more minutes.
4:05 a.m. Oh no. This isn’t pee pain. What did we have for dinner last night? I get up to pee.
4:10 a.m. I’m back in bed but still unsure of this pain. Could it be the real thing? Should I wake Daren up? What if I’m wrong? What if I’m right?
4:15 a.m. This has got to be it. But they are 5 minutes apart . . . already? Wow this kid knows what he wants.
4:18 Shake Daren awake. “It’s happening honey. I’ve been counting and they are 5 minutes apart.”
“REALLY??”
“Really.”
After getting to the hospital and being sent right back home to eat breakfast, we return hours later with me still at 5 minutes apart. The doctor tells me I’m 4 cm dilated. Okay great. That’s almost halfway, right? Where are the drugs?
Well my sandal-wearing, tree hugging, pro-natural-birth doctor hates me as it is because I gained 60 lbs. worth of ice cream, peanut butter and fish and chips, but the fact that I’m already asking for drugs puts a sour look on her cross eyed face.
“I think you’d feel much better if you squatted on the floor,” she says. I’m not even sure which eye is looking at me at this point. She caught me mid-contraction and as much as I have humored her over the last 9 months, I snap at her this time, “I think I’d feel better if you squatted on the fucking floor.” I don’t see her again until delivery.
Despite delivery being nearly 24 hours after that 4 a.m. wake up call, it goes by quite fast. At some point I got my blissful epidural. Let me just tell you, if I could have an epidural machine at my house, I would. As much as I was afraid my spine would be damaged forever when I saw how young the anesthesiologist was ~ (I swear he was 16) that boy was my God for weeks afterward. I slept through hours of contractions until Dr. Cross Eyed told the nurse to turn it down when it was time for me to push so I would be able to feel what I was doing. Yeah sure Doc, you just want me to scream, you sadist. The sandals are a cover-up; you clearly don’t love the whole wide world and all its trees and people. What a front.
The next hour felt like 10 minutes. I pushed and grunted and growled like a mother bear. Daren said I was “scary,” 3 weeks later when I asked him to recall the whole experience. I do remember the “Ring of Fire” I felt as Dylan’s head crowned. No one should ever have to feel that pain. I stopped and looked at Daren with pleading eyes, and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” He just kept cheering me on, until Dr. Cross Eyed told him to “Shut up. She can do this without the cheering.” See? I told you she didn’t love the world.
A few seconds later, Dylan came flying out and Dr. Cross Eyed caught him by the leg, flipped him around and his little penis landed right in front of my face. “Oh, it’s a boy,” I exclaim.
“What the hell do I do with a boy?”
