“Can I think about it?”
“Sure. Think,” Dr. Mendlow said, getting to his feet. “Just don’t think too long. I’m going to go ahead and pencil you in. Let me know by five.”
“Okay,” Becky said, wiping tears off her cheeks. “Okay.”
She called Andrew on his cell phone and met him in the cafeteria for lunch. “I know you must be disappointed,” he said, passing her handfuls of flimsy paper napkins so she could wipe her eyes. “But Dr. Mendlow knows how strongly you feel, and he wouldn’t be advising this if he didn’t have very good reasons.”
“I just feel like such a failure,” Becky wept.
“You shouldn’t,” Andrew told her. “It’s just a case of knowledge outstripping evolution. We know more about good nutrition and not smoking and drinking than any other generation. So the babies are getting bigger, and the moms aren’t.”
“Fine,” Becky sniffled. She knew he understood how she’d dreamed about the birth; how she’d read a book that talked about how women needed to be brave and strong, to be warriors for their babies; how she wanted to be a warrior for her daughter, laboring in water, on her hands and knees, squatting, stretching, doing whatever it took, working in harmony with her baby until her daughter had made her way into the world. And now here she was, facing exactly the kind of birth she didn’t want—a cold, sterile operating room, bright lights and surgical scrubs, nothing gentle or peaceful or meaningful about it.
She walked home slowly along the heat-sticky pavement. She called her mother, who told her that she’d be there late the next morning. She called Kelly, who tried and only partially succeeded in not sounding envious, and Ayinde, who dropped the phone twice in the course of a five-minute conversation because she didn’t want to put Julian down even for an instant. “In Guatemala, the women carry their babies constantly,” Ayinde said. “And there’s lots of benefits to it. Bonding and all.”
“Whatever you say,” Becky said, and Ayinde had laughed.
“No, it’s not whatever I say, it’s whatever Baby Success! says. Call us as soon as you can.”
Becky said that she would. Then she called Sarah to tell her that her doula services wouldn’t be required, and made a reservation for an early dinner at her favorite sushi place. She hadn’t eaten sushi during her entire pregnancy, but now, what did it matter? The baby was practically in nursery school, and a few slices of raw tuna weren’t going to hurt.
Ow. She rolled over, grimacing, and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning, and her stomach was killing her. She closed her eyes. Her mother would be there in nine hours; she’d be having her C-section . . . no, she thought, reframing the statement the way her books had taught her, she’d be having her baby in less than twelve hours. She tried to breath deeply, listening to Andrew’s raspy exhales, concentrating on her baby. Ow!
Okay, she thought, bunching a pillow underneath her head. It was 3:10 and, clearly, the sushi had been a mistake. “Andrew?” she whispered.
Without opening his eyes or even seeming to wake up at all, her husband reached over to the bedside table, groped unerringly for the antacids with one long-fingered hand, and tossed them across the quilt. Becky chomped two and closed her eyes again. At the ultrasound the day before, they’d said her baby looked to be in the nine-and-a-half-pound to ten-pound range, which meant that the size Newborn clothes she’d bought and stashed at Sarah’s house probably weren’t going to do her any good. She wondered if she could return them. Kelly would know. Maybe she’d even want to take them back herself. It would be something to keep her busy while she waited and . . . Ow!
She looked at the clock again—3:20. “Andrew?” she whispered again. Her husband’s hand spidered out from underneath the sheets and started groping on the bedside table again. “No, no, wake up,” she said. “I think I’m in labor!”
He blinked at her, then pulled on his glasses. “Seriously?”
“I just had three contractions in a row, ten minutes apart.”
“Huh,” he said and yawned.
“Huh? Is that all you’ve got to say?” She maneuvered herself upright, reached across him, and called Dr. Mendlow’s service. Press one for an appointment, two for a referral or a prescription refill, three if you are a patient in labor . . . “I’m finally getting to press three!” she announced.
“What?”
She shook her head, giving the answering service her name and her number. Then she eased herself out of the bed and lifted her suitcase onto the mattress. “Nightgowns, pajamas, book,” she said out loud.
“I’m not sure you’re going to get a lot of reading done,” said Andrew.
The telephone rang. Andrew handed it over. “Dr. Mendlow?” Becky said. But it wasn’t Dr. Mendlow; it was Dr. Fisher, his older, grumpier colleague. Becky had seen Dr. Fisher once, at her three-month visit, when Dr. Mendlow had been called away for a delivery. Dr. Fisher had completely ruined her day by looking revolted as he’d palpated her belly. “Ever tried Weight Watchers?” he asked when her feet were in the stirrups. And he hadn’t so much as cracked a smile when Becky had blinked at him and asked, breathlessly, “What’s that?”
“I’m having regular contractions,” Becky said.
“Dr. Mendlow’s notes said we’d decided on a C-section,” Dr. Fisher said.
“Well, that had been my decision,” Becky said, hitting the had and my with equal emphasis. “But now that I’m in labor, I’d like to go back to my birth plan and give natural childbirth a shot.”
“If you want to try it, that’s fine,” he said in an It’s your funeral tone. “Come on in when your contractions are four minutes apart . . .”
“ . . . one minute long, for over an hour.”
“You got it,” he said and hung up the phone.
Becky’s mother, dressed in a light-blue velour warm-up suit and pristine white sneakers, stared as she saw her daughter and her son-in-law beside the baggage carousel. “What are you doing here?” she asked Becky, letting go of her suitcase and grabbing for Becky’s hands. “Why aren’t you in the hospital?”
“I’m in labor,” Becky said.
Her mother’s eyes darted around, taking in the crowds of travelers dragging suitcases and the uniformed limousine drivers holding placards with names written on them. “You’re in labor here?” She looked at Andrew. “Is that safe?”
“It’s early labor. It’s fine,” Becky said, leading her mother to the car, where she’d already packed her aromatherapy oils, relaxation tapes, a dog-eared copy of Birthing from Within and Naomi Wolf’s Misconceptions for inspiration. “There’s no reason for me to be in the hospital yet.”
“But . . . but . . .” Her mother looked past Becky at Andrew. “What about the C-section?”
“We’re going to give vaginal delivery a shot,” Andrew said. Edith Rothstein flinched—whether from the idea of her daughter in labor, walking around in public, or her son-in-law saying vaginal, Becky wasn’t sure.
“It’s okay,” Becky told her, as Andrew started driving. “Really. I heard the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor yesterday, and it’s fine. Ooh, ooh, contraction.” She closed her eyes and swayed slowly back and forth, breathing, picturing the warm sand of a beach, hearing the waves roll in, trying not to hear her mother muttering what sounded like This is crazy underneath her breath.
“So you’re just going to stay here?” Edith asked incredulously once they were back in the house and Becky had installed herself on top of her inflatable birth ball. Edith’s pale-blue eyes widened. “You’re not going to have the baby here, are you?”
“No, Mom,” Becky said patiently. “But I’m not going to the hospital yet.”
Her mother shook her head and headed for the stairs and the kitchen, where she’d probably start in on rearranging Becky’s spice rack.
Andrew put Edith’s suitcase in the closet. Then he knelt down and rubbed Becky’s shoulders. “I’m so proud that you want to do it this way,” he said. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I wouldn’t leave for anything,” he said.
Two long baths, one CD’s worth of whale songs, and twelve hours’ worth of on-and-off contractions later, Dr. Mendlow finally called. “Why don’t you stop on in, let us have a look?” he said, so casually that he could have been suggesting joining him for a cup of coffee.
Fifteen minutes later, just before ten o’clock at night, they were in triage.
“Hmm,” said the nurse, looking from Becky to the narrow bed in triage and back to Becky again.
“You all need some BIG GIRL beds!” Becky announced and hoisted herself aboard. Today of all days she was not going to let anyone make her feel ashamed about her size.
The nurse scratched her chin and wandered away. Becky closed her eyes and blew out a great frustrated breath.
“You’re doing fine,” Andrew said.
“I’m tired,” said Becky, as the nurse reappeared and tried to wrestle a too-small blood pressure cuff around Becky’s upper arm.
A resident came in to examine her. “Three centimeters,” she announced.
Becky turned to Andrew. “Three? THREE?!? That can’t be right,” she said, looking past the mound of her belly to the bored resident. “Can you check again, please? I’ve been in labor since three o’clock this morning.”
The resident pursed her lips and put her hand back. “Three,” she said.
Shit, thought Becky. After all that time, she’d harbored the secret dream that she’d be more along the lines of eight or nine centimeters dilated and ready to push.
“Do you want to go back home?” asked Andrew.
Becky shook her head. “Can’t do it,” she said. “My mother’s about to have a nervous breakdown. Let’s just get a room already.”
“Should I get Sarah to come?”
“Only if she’s coming on a bus full of morphine,” Becky said and tried to smile. “Sure. Go call her.” She raised her voice and called to the nurse. “Hey, me and my crappy three-centimeters-dilated cervix would like to be admitted.”
“I’ll alert the media,” the nurse called back.
An hour later, which was forty-five minutes longer than it had taken with Ayinde, Becky and Andrew were in their room.
“Did you ever think about playing professional basketball? Because I’ve noticed that it really improves the service around here,” Becky said, plopping down on the rocking chair, trying not to notice the way it pinched at her hips, and rocking back and forth in preparation for the next contraction.
Andrew shook his head. “Want me to call your mom?”
“Tell her we’ve been admitted, but tell her not to come yet,” Becky said. “I don’t want her sitting in a waiting room all night. She really would have a nervous breakdown. At least at our house there’s stuff for her to organize.”
He nodded, then cleared his throat. “Can I call my mom?”
“She knows I’m in labor, right?”
Andrew nodded. From his silence, she could guess exactly what Mimi’s opinion of Becky opting for labor rather than the scheduled C-section had been. “Let’s just call her once the baby’s here, okay?”
Andrew frowned at her.
“Oh, don’t make the pouty face,” Becky said. “That was the plan, right?”
“It’s just that it’s a happy occasion,” Andrew said. “I feel bad that we’re not letting my mother be a part of it.”
“If she was capable of acting like a normal human being,” Becky began, before a contraction interrupted her. A good thing, too. Andrew looked miserable every time Becky complained about his mother, which, she had to admit, happened more than she would have liked every time the subject of Mimi came up. “Look,” she said, once the contraction had eased off. “She’s a little anxious, as you know, and I just think it would be better for me—better for the labor, better for the baby—if I didn’t have to worry about her being here. As soon as the baby comes, call away, but for now, I want this to be just the two of us. Well, the two of us, and Sarah. And the baby.” She stared down bleakly at her belly. “Soon, I hope.”
Andrew nodded and stepped into the hall to call Edith. When he came back, he was rubbing his eyes.
“Lie down,” Becky said, half hoping that he wouldn’t take her up on her offer. No such luck. Andrew made a beeline for the bed. “I’m just gonna close my eyes for a minute,” he said. Approximately ten seconds later, he was sound asleep, leaving Becky lonely in the dark. “Dammit,” she whispered. She’d forgotten that Andrew’s seven years of fourteen-hour days in hospitals had given him the uncanny ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat in anything that even resembled a bed.
Another contraction started. “You know,” she gasped, “this hurts a lot more than Naomi Wolf would have had me believe.” Andrew snorted in his sleep. Becky clutched her belly, groaning, trying to breathe through it the way she’d practiced, feeling ashamed of herself. When she’d been in a room down the hall with Ayinde, a small secret part of her had believed that she’d be stronger than her friend, that no matter how bad the pain she wouldn’t scream or writhe or call on Jesus. Well, the joke was on her. Here she sat, screaming and writhing like a pro, and the only reason she hadn’t called on Jesus yet was on account of being Jewish. And Becky was sure that in another hour or so, given the intensity of her contractions, all bets would be off, and she’d be taking whatever divine intervention she could get.
A nurse poked her head into the room and picked up the clipboard next to the bed, where Becky’s birth plan was prominently displayed. “Okay, so we’re going to do this natural,” she said with a smile.
No, Becky wanted to shout. No, no! I was high when I wrote that! I didn’t know what I was talking about! Bring on the drugs! But she kept her mouth shut and tried to hold still while the nurse found the baby’s heartbeat with a handheld Doppler device.
“Ow, ow, ow,” Becky moaned, shifting her weight from foot to foot as the contraction tore through her. Andrew’s cell phone started ringing.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Becky groaned, knowing instantly who their mystery caller was. “You’re not even supposed to use cell phones in here!”
“I’ll just be a minute,” he said, angling his body away from her, pressing the phone to his ear. Becky could hear every one of Mimi’s words.
“An-DREW? What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you in hours! I called your house, but someone—” Becky grimaced. For reasons she’d never understood, Mimi had taken an instant disliking to Becky’s mother, and refused to so much as utter her name. “—said you weren’t there. Where are you?”
“Andrew,” Becky whispered, “it’s the middle of the night and I’m in labor. Where does she think we are? Key West?”
“Well, Mom, we’re actually a little busy right now.”
No, Becky mouthed frantically. No!
“Shh,” Andrew whispered and turned toward the window, leaving Becky to pound fruitlessly on his plaid-shirted shoulder.
“Oh mah GAWD!” Mimi shrieked. “Is the baby comin’? Is this it? Oh, ANDREW! I’m gonna be a GRAND-ma!” There was a click, then silence. Andrew closed his eyes and banged his forehead against the wall.
“Just keep her in the waiting room,” Becky said. “Please. Seriously. If you love me at all, keep her in the waiting room.”
He bent down and squeezed her hands. “I promise,” he said.
“You’d better,” she said. “Because I’ve had about all I can take here.”
There was a knock on the door, and there was Sarah, in a sweatshirt and jeans, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, grinning at them with a brimming tote bag over her shoulder. “Hey, you two,” she said. Becky felt better just looking at her. She let Sarah lead her back to the rocking chair and told Andrew to go back to sleep. “Take a nap,” Sarah urged him. “We’ll need you later.”
/> Ten minutes later, Andrew was snoring again, arms outstretched, glasses askew on his face, and Becky was squatting on the birth ball, with Sarah crouching behind her, digging her knuckles into the small of Becky’s back. “Does that feel any better?”
“Yes. No. It’s still awful,” Becky said. She felt as limp as a wet washcloth, more tired than she’d been in her entire life. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurrrts,” she moaned, shaking her head back and forth, her sweaty hair sticking to her cheeks. “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.”
Sarah wrapped her arms around her shoulders and rocked with her. “You’re doing fine,” she said. Becky wasn’t so sure. Maybe this was the great equalizer she’d been hoping for—not pregnancy itself, but birth that put all women, large and small, black and white, rich and poor and in between, on the same playing field, battered by fear, begging for drugs, wanting nothing except for the pain to stop and the baby to arrive.
“Shh,” Sarah soothed, as the contractions rose and fell, rose and fell. She flipped open to the page Becky had bookmarked in Birthing from Within. “Visualize your cervix. See it opening like a flower.” Sarah set the book down. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”
“FUCK my cervix,” Becky wept, leaning against Sarah’s shoulder. “How do women do this?”
“Fucked if I know,” said her friend. “Want me to call a nurse?”
Becky shook her head, feeling sweaty tendrils sticking to her cheeks as Sarah helped her to stand up and lean against the wall. “This cannot get any worse.”
The door to her room opened, and a triangular wedge of light spilled into the darkness, followed by a familiar voice. “Hahyahhh.” Which was Mimi’s approximation of “Hi.”
“Oh, shit,” Becky whispered into Sarah’s shoulder. “Wrong again.”
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