As She Grows

by Lesley Anne Cowan

  “It’s not gushing,” I explain to Karyn who is on the other side of the cubicle. We are on the main floor of the house, in the ladies’ washroom. It’s just before dinner. “It’s more like pee,” I explain.

  “Let me in,” Karyn says, rattling the door. “Let me see.”

  “No way!” I yell. I start to panic. The pee is sort of red, not clear. My head starts to wooze, the back of my neck gets hot and sweaty. I have this dull aching pain in my back. It’s two weeks before my due date. I’m not ready for this.

  When I arrive at the hospital with Ms. Crawl and Karyn, I have to sit in the waiting area until a room is ready. I had pictured it differently, doctors running around, crowds parting to let the pregnant girl through. Instead, no one seems to care that I’m about to explode.

  “What’s taking so long!” I yell, standing up from the uncomfortable plastic chair. I’m in total agony but I won’t admit it. I told myself I wouldn’t wimp out, that I’m above the pain. But I can’t imagine it getting any worse. I don’t think my body can take it.

  “It won’t be long,” Ms. Crawl says calmly. “Just . . .” The contraction waves through my body, so painful I can’t hear the rest of Ms. Crawl’s useless sentence. She holds the stopwatch in her hand up to her face, squinting her eyes to read the small numbers. “That’s five minutes, eight seconds,” she says and records the number down on her pad of paper.

  “Just try to relax,” Karyn consoles. “Do you want your crossword puzzle?” She’s about to reach into my bag before I grab her wrist and twist it away.

  “I don’t want a fucking crossword! Jesus Christ!” I just want the pain to stop. I start to panic. My eyes scan the room for someone wearing a name tag who could possibly understand what I’m going through. “Where’s my room?”

  “I’ll go call your aunt.” Karyn heads toward the payphone. Meanwhile, Ms. Crawl marches up to the lady holding the clipboard and I’m relieved someone is finally taking charge. But they start chatting and laughing, like they’re old friends, and I don’t think Ms. Crawl is even talking about me. After a few minutes she comes back to our seats.

  “The nurse will come soon to assess you, Snow. Don’t worry. It’ll still be a while now. Your contractions are just about right.” She smiles and rubs my back, her bony fingers poking into my shoulder blade. For a split second, I’m glad she’s here. I’m glad someone knows what’s going on. Because although I hate the bitch, I know Ms. Crawl wouldn’t let anyone cut any corners with me.

  When I finally get moved to my room, I can’t sit still. I get up and walk around, lean over on the chairs and then squat down. Each new position seems to release the pressure in my back, but then I have a contraction and the middle of my body is squeezed like an accordion. This goes on for what seems like hours. Every once in a while, a useless nurse comes in to check me and then leaves.

  “Open a window,” I command as I pace the room.

  “I can’t,” Karyn answers. She is sitting on the side of the bed, watching me. “They’re sealed.”

  I walk over to the window and angrily slam my open hand against the glass. “I can’t breathe!”

  “Take off your sweatshirt,”’ Ms. Crawl suggests from her chair by the bed. She puts down her paperback novel and stares at me. Then she lifts her juice and takes a sip. It’s as if she’s at the beach. “You must be roasting,” she says.

  “No, it stays on,” I warn.

  “It’ll have to come off sooner or later,” she persists.

  “I’m leaving it on,” I say, thinking about my scars. “I don’t want any perverted doctor getting a free peep show.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ms. Crawl laughs.

  “I’m leaving it on,” I say, resolute. And Ms. Crawl just shrugs her shoulders.

  I kick Karyn off my bed and prop some pillows up behind my back. A few minutes later, the nurse comes in the room and tells me she needs to take my blood pressure. “You’ll need to take this off,” she says, tugging at my sweatshirt. I dart a look at Ms. Crawl. It’s as if they had planned this.

  Another contraction tears through me. The pain is so unbearable, I don’t care anymore. I rip the sweatshirt up over my head and reach to the table for the nightgown Aunt Sharon gave me.

  “Oh my God,” the nurse exclaims. Her eyes dart between my body and Karyn.

  “Jesus,” Ms. Crawl exhales.

  “Snow—what happened?” Karyn raises her hand up over her mouth as if she’s about to throw up. Her face is pale with red splotches.

  At first I’m embarrassed, but then I just get angry. “What?” I snarl. I give up on trying to cover myself with the gown wrapped around my waist. “You wanted my shirt off. There!” I throw it on the chair in the corner and lie back down. “It’s off. Satisfied?” I rise from the pillows, inhale deeply, and thrust my bare chest out. “Take a better look, why don’t ya,” I challenge.

  The letters on my skin are rough and messy. I follow Karyn’s eyes as she reads my body’s Braille. Her head slightly tilted and brow creased, I watch her decipher M-O-T-H-E-R etched on my left forearm. And then S-L-U-T, faint and red, arching along my bicep to my shoulder like a sagging rainbow. I see her eyes widen as she pulls back her horrified face and I turn to face the wall as I sense her tracing the thin messy lines across my chest. The U that runs along the side of my body, up to just under my armpit and back down again. Then the letters G and L, sharp and jagged across my breasts. And finally Y, on the right side of my torso, disappearing along the curve toward my back.

  Everyone in the room remains silent as if time is frozen. Finally, a contraction clenches me, I fold and scream and people start moving again. Karyn helps me with my nightgown. Ms. Crawl leaves the room quickly and the nurse is suddenly exceptionally accommodating. And nothing more is said about my marks.

  When Aunt Sharon arrives, Ms. Crawl talks to her outside my door for what seems like forever. Through the window, I see Aunt Sharon’s head nodding and shaking and her hand goes up to her forehead, as if she has another one of her migraines. I can’t stand thinking about what Ms. Crawl must be saying about me. About how crazy I am.

  “I know you’re talking about me!” I yell angrily from my bed. “Stop talking about me!”

  They finally enter my room, intense looks on their faces. Aunt Sharon greets me with a confused and concerned expression. “You okay?” she asks.

  “Hurts like hell,” I mumble, pouting a little bit. I am just relieved that Aunt Sharon is in the room now and Ms. Crawl isn’t filling her head with her theories on me.

  “No, I mean, are you okay?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I respond, embarrassed that she now knows about my cuts.

  Ms. Crawl and Karyn leave the room to go buy coffees and I realize that it’s already one o’clock in the morning. After they leave a nurse slathers my belly with slimy jelly and then straps a belt around me. The red numbers start blinking, numbers rising and falling like video game scores. She explains that one number is the baby’s heartbeat and the other is my contractions. A roll of paper starts coming out of the machine and curling onto the floor.

  Just when I thought the pain couldn’t get any worse, it does. Aunt Sharon keeps pulling down my nightgown over my legs and then shutting the drapes after the nurses leave my bedside, the metal rings scraping like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “Jesus Christ! Just fucking leave it! I don’t give a shit if someone sees,” I snarl. Without saying a word, she dramatically yanks the curtains open wide, drops down on a chair in the corner, and pulls out my crossword book. I feel guilty almost immediately. “You have know idea what the pain’s like,” I explain, without thinking how offended she might be by this comment. Her eyes rise from the page, she glares at me a moment. “I mean—”

  “Just shut up,” she says flatly.

  Finally, the doctor comes back in the room. “Busy night!” he says cheerily. “Everybody having babies.” He glances at the machine and then looks at me. “I’m Doctor Freeman, Snow. I’ll b
e delivering your baby. How are you feeling?”

  “The contractions kill,” I complain.

  He smiles, as if this were amusing him. “Hang in there. Let me see how far you’ve progressed.” He moves to the bottom of the bed and tells me to bring my ankles up together. “It’ll just take a second,” he says and then he shoves his fingers up inside me. “Three centimetres dilated. Looks just fine. Did you already discuss an epidural?” He looks to me and Aunt Sharon and we both nod our heads. “We’ll have the anesthetist come in a few minutes. You’ll feel better after that.” He gives me a supportive squeeze on the knee and then heads back out of the room.

  Shortly, the anesthetist walks in and I like him because he’s wearing jeans under his white coat and he talks like a regular guy. “I’m every pregnant lady’s genie without a bottle,” he says. “Make a wish.” I lean forward like he tells me, roll my spine, and feel a prick as the needle slides between my bones.

  “Make sure there’s enough,” I remind him because I’ve heard about the doctors who don’t give teen moms enough painkillers, so they aren’t tempted to make this mistake again any time soon.

  Ms. Crawl and Karyn return from a very long coffee and we all sit and wait. Soon, my legs become heavy, then the pain is gone. Every few minutes the nurse enters the room, holds out the paper scrolls, and checks the flashing numbers on the monitor. But this time, I notice her forehead is creased as she is frantically recording things on her chart. She murmurs something I can’t quite make out and then she quickly darts out of the room.

  “What’d she say?” I ask, leaning up on my arms. I turn to Ms. Crawl’s chair. “What’s she doing?” But Ms. Crawl is already following the nurse out of the room.

  I turn to Aunt Sharon, who has a worried look on her face. “What the fuck’s going on?” I demand.

  “She said something about the baby being in stress. I think they’re a little worried about the heart rate. It’s all right. They know what they’re doing. You’re in good hands.”

  Right away the doctor and nurse come rushing in. They look at all the flashing numbers and printed scrolls, talking about contractions and heart rates and numbers as if we weren’t even there.

  Then the doctor turns to me. “The cord is around the baby’s neck. Each time you have a contraction, the baby doesn’t get any oxygen. We’ll have to do a C-section. Now.” I can hear the urgency in his voice, and before I know it, I’m being wheeled quickly down the hall, Aunt Sharon and Karyn and Ms. Crawl following behind.

  The operating room is all steel and tile surfaces and bright lights. It’s freezing, but I don’t even care because all I’m thinking about is the baby and the cord around her neck. And it’s like I know what she’s doing. Strangling herself. My baby would rather die than be born to me. And she’s killing herself and I’m killing her, and it’s all the same thing.

  Everything happens so fast. A bunch of people start moving about the room and I can’t tell who they are because they’re all wearing the same green scrubs and masks and caps. One nurse sticks an IV in my arm, and another starts shaving my stomach and some of my crotch. When the buzzing stops she looks up at me and asks, “You doing okay?”

  “Just get her out!” I shout, panicking, because I don’t want the baby dying inside of me.

  Then the IV nurse starts slathering my belly with yellowish brown liquid. Someone hoists a white sheet up in front of me so I can no longer see below my chest. “Tell me when you can feel a pinprick,” I am surprised to hear the anesthetist say from the bottom of my bed because I didn’t even see him enter the room.

  “Just get her out!” I yell. “You’re taking too long.”

  The doctor arrives with a mask and gloves on, and I start to get really scared. “Hi, Snow. How are you feeling?” He stands beside me, all relaxed, as if we’re chatting in a garden somewhere.

  I’m shaking now and my head feels woozy.“Not so good,” I say as he moves down to the bottom of the table.

  “You’re going to be just fine, Snow. Just take nice deep breaths. Everything looks good. We’re going to make an incision just above the pubic bone. You won’t even have to worry about a scar on the beach,” he says jokingly. “We’re going to get the baby out as fast as we can.”

  “Hang in there, sweetie.” I feel Sharon’s hand on my forehead. I turn my head to see she’s all covered up as well. I had never noticed her eyes before. They’re almost the same colour as mine.

  A nurse pops her face into my vision. “You’ll hear a suckingvacuum noise and that will tell you we’re close,” she says, before disappearing once more.

  “I’m gonna barf,” I murmur so quietly I don’t think anyone can hear me, but before I know it, Aunt Sharon is holding a bowl beside my head and I’m puking my guts out.

  I can’t feel a thing below my belly button. No pain, but I feel an unbearable pressure at my ribs. The doctor has a hold on one side of me, pulling, and the nurse has a hold on the other side of me, pulling. My body wiggles on the table. I look up to see a reflection in the metal lights above me, but all I can see is bright red. I get this vision of a horror movie and I think of a monster flying out of my body.

  “Congratulations! A lovely baby girl!” the doctor announces a few minutes later. And I see this bloody, goopy blur being carried over to the warming table.

  “Is she all right?” I ask, and then I hear her cry, crackly and rough.

  “She’s just fine. Just fine,” a nurse says. “What’s her name?”

  I lie there, motionless, speechless. All my panic about the baby being alive and normal leaves me and I’m left with this blank and cold head. It’s like I’m just realizing, really realizing, that I have a baby. Only it feels like nothing’s changed. I don’t feel like an instant mother. I don’t feel anything.

  “What’s her name?” Aunt Sharon repeats excitedly, and I see that she’s been crying.

  “Betty,” I say.

  “Betty?” the nurse repeats, looking up to Aunt Sharon’s nodding head for confirmation. “Well, that’s a beautiful name. Betty.”

  Aunt Sharon follows the baby and the nurse down to another room while they take out my placenta and then sew me up. I can barely keep my eyes open, but I force myself to stay awake because I can hear the nurses taking inventory of their tools and I don’t want something to be left inside. When it’s all over, they wheel me down to the recovery room.

  The nurse keeps appearing at my bedside, reminding me that as soon as I can wiggle my toes I can go and see my baby. So I lie there, hoping that my legs will remain numb. I concentrate on keeping them still. My eyes get heavier and heavier. And when the big toe on my right foot jiggles, the nurse gets all excited, but I pretend it was a muscle twitch. And she looks confused and stares at me in the strangest way.

  “I just want to sleep. I’m so tired. Can I sleep now?” I ask and close my eyes, not waiting for an answer.

  When I wake I’m in my room. I see a different nurse in front of me, holding my baby in a white blanket. I am still hooked up to IVs and my head is groggy. She tilts the bundle so I can see her face. “Your little girl!” she says, excited. “All six pounds and nineteen inches of her,” she announces, but I don’t even know how long that is. She extends out her arms to pass the baby to me and I panic, looking around the room for Aunt Sharon. “Your aunt told me to tell you she had to go to work,” the nurse says. “She’ll be by tonight.” She pushes the baby toward me and I have no choice but to reach out to take her tiny body into my hands.

  “You’ll need to be careful of lifting,” the nurse warns. “It takes a while for the incision to heal.” She moves in closer and puts the weightless bundle into my arms.

  “She’s so small,” I say, touching the baby’s tiny cheek with my pinkie. Her light hair is still damp, and she has Mark’s perfect little nose and his perfect little lips. There is a yellow plastic clamp on her belly button, all bloody and gross, which I cover up with the blanket. I pull out one of her hands, so tiny, with little p
ink-shell fingernails. I can’t believe such perfection came out of me.

  Then she starts crying, this dry wailing, and her hands start flapping in the air. I quickly reach out to pass her back to the nurse, who simply smiles at me and retracts her hands. “You’ll need to calm her,” she says, and stands over me, watching. “It’s important to start the bonding right away.” She stays by my bedside, occasionally giving me directions:“Hold her close to your chest and try to relax a little. She’s not so fragile. You won’t break her.”

  After about five minutes, my door opens and someone calls the nurse away. “I’ll come back in a while to start you breast-feeding,” she says, rushing out of the room.

  “Wait!” I scream, not wanting her to leave.

  “I’ll be back,” she assures me, halfway out the door.

  I don’t know what to do. What if the baby stops breathing or chokes or turns blue in my hands? “Fuck!” I yell out in frustration. The nurse stops in her tracks and glares back at me. Her face is controlled, her mouth tight as if she’s literally biting her tongue.

  “You’re not a little girl anymore,” she says, barely moving her jaw or lips. And then she leaves.

  I hate the bitch for going. For leaving me with this baby I know nothing about. I am terrified. I want to throw Betty into someone else’s arms, anyone else’s arms. I jiggle her up and down a little until she stops crying and opens her eyes. I wait for that feeling of motherhood to come over me, wait for my face to nuzzle down onto her tiny head. I wait to feel something, anything other than this blankness inside. I wait for what must be at least ten minutes, then look away from her piercing eyes and whisper, “I’m sorry,” into her soft skin.

  27

  After three days in the hospital I’m back at Beverley. I lie in bed all day, wearing the nightgown Staff gave me, with a buttoned slit at the chest for breast-feeding. I can barely move. My insides feel as if they’ve been taken out of my body, jumbled up, and just shoved back in. I stare at the baby’s crib in the corner of my room, watching for the quick rise of her chest. Karyn’s words repeating over and over in my head: Careful, because even a mere blanket over her face could suffocate her.