Fauna

by Donna Mazza

  ‘Can we go and sit outside somewhere?’

  I nod and he leaves to find a wheelchair. Through the winding hallways we leave a scent trail of spice all the way to the river, outside to the garden.

  ‘You seem really out of it, Stace. Have they drugged you up?’ He opens the soup. Places one carefully on my lap, bolstered by a wad of serviettes.

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s just …’ How do I tell him of the way she has slurped my mind through the placenta, that I am no longer myself? That she has bled into me and I into her. ‘I don’t feel like myself.’

  ‘I’m worried they’ve done it to you.’

  I close my eyes. The cold air off the river brings the insects of night. They rush against the lit windows, gentle collisions.

  ‘I spoke to the doctor.’

  ‘The baby is fine,’ not sure if I am asking or telling him.

  ‘Yes, Stacey. I have been watching her at night through the PregCam™ after the kids go to bed. It’s kind of mesmerising and it makes me feel close to you. I know that sounds weird. Pretty fucked up really.’ He laughs, sadly.

  ‘I hate being in here. I feel like an object, a machine or something.’ The image of a pink lamb immersed in clear liquid. Eyes closed, tubes and valves fused to an artificial uterus. A plastic bag, blood pumping into and out of the lamb, pulsing and beeping. ‘I just want to scream.’ Tears.

  He removes the soup and holds me.

  ‘What happened to the lamb?’

  ‘What lamb?’ He is gentle but he looks at me like I’m half mad.

  ‘The lamb that was made in the artificial uterus.’ Years ago, when we were kids. ‘It was all over social media. Years ago.’

  ‘Dunno. You want me to find out? It’s probably hopping around in a paddock somewhere.’ He is wide eyed, afraid of me and what I might be. I know his look of worry and fear. They are entwined.

  ‘Why did they choose a lamb?’

  He shakes his head, rubs his temples.

  ‘A lamb, Isak. Lamb of God, Isak. I feel like a human sacrifice. Do you understand?’

  I know he doesn’t.

  ‘You wanted to do this.’

  He’s just a regular guy—simple hearted.

  ‘I know. They could have used a plastic uterus like they did with the lamb. They didn’t need me. They had proof that it works without people.’ All day I have thought of this.

  ‘They did need you. A child can’t be born without parents.’

  They can, in theory. They proved it years ago.

  ‘The lamb was.’ I almost yell at him, voice high. I pull back. Calm. Try to still myself.

  ‘She’s not a lamb. She’s your baby. A person in there who will love you just because you are her mother, doesn’t matter what you do.’

  A mosquito lands on my arm. Its delicate probe immersed in my flesh.

  Isak slaps it definitively. Sits back in his chair. ‘I just want this to be as normal as possible, Stace.’ Normal is so elastic. His voice is husky and low, I know he has tears.

  ‘She will love us, not just me.’

  He smiles a little and I know I must assure him. Not send him away with that tangled-up look. ‘I hate being observed, Isak. I didn’t realise it would be like this. They have their camera up inside me and they hook me up to machinery, monitors and scanners. They beep and nurses take notes. They don’t even need to speak to me. I could be that plastic sack of amniotic fluid. I could be those tubes of blood.’

  ‘When we take her home, I will take some time off work and we can pack the kids in the car and go somewhere down south. Augusta maybe, or Windy Harbour. Somewhere peaceful where the kids can swim and nobody will scan you or take blood tests. We won’t take a camera, it’ll be private. No phones either.’

  I love him so much—his practical solution to this.

  ‘Promise?’

  He holds my hands between his. ‘I promise. Now I have to go.’ He stands. ‘But it won’t be long and we’ll be collecting shells on the beach with the kids and our new baby. Okay?’ He wheels me away from the cold night. I can still smell the laksa and I sleep quickly, dream my mother is stroking my hair.

  30 WEEKS

  Early in the morning, I step onto the cold floor. Liquid rushes out, trails down my legs like a current. Around the arch of my foot. I stand still, holding the metal bed with my left hand. It feels like a torrent but when I look at the pool on the floor it might be a mouthful. A tear duct. When they know, there will be urgency, phone calls and calm words. I step into the bathroom, stand before the mirror. My face rosy, hair ragged. The round belly is low and I feel her pressing down. She is ready, but I am not.

  In the shower, I wash my hair. Anoint myself with soap. My hand rolls around and around my belly, the feeling comforting. Soon the nerves will swell and pain will be all that I am so I gather myself and stretch these minutes under the warm drizzle. Swirl of soap and hair and amniotic fluids gushing around on the tiles. I wrap myself, dry each part. We will not be the same again. The machinery of birth alters me, alters our family and the world. But she will be. Through me she will travel, through the muscles of my body, through my labour, my arteries and cells. Stretching me into the shape of her, taking my flesh to its limits. My abdomen tightens, another trickle of warmth down my thigh and something drops on the tiles. The soft bean of the PregCam™. I leave it there amid the soap and wrap myself in a fresh white towel. Soon they will know.

  In my towel, I ring Isak before they tell him for me. He is primed, ready with a plan. A man with purpose. I dress in my gardens-of-Babylon dress, do my hair. Breakfast arrives, then Dr Jeff. I prop myself gingerly onto the pile of pillows and slowly turn the scrambled eggs.

  ‘You’ll need all the energy you can get, Stacey. Eat up, don’t mind me.’ He flips through the clipboard of observations on the end of my bed, looking over at me as if to verify what he has read is true. There’s a gleam in his eye and he’s cheerier than usual, his shoulders straight and jaunty. I know he is excited to see ‘his creation’.

  ‘So your waters have broken, say an hour ago?’ He stares into my eyes, more hypnotic than usual. I nod and he notes the time.

  ‘Are you going to wait and see if I go into labour?’

  ‘Yes, we’ll give you twenty-four hours and see if things happen naturally. Was there any colour in the fluid?’ His pen poised.

  I shake my head.

  ‘The birth plan is to keep it as natural as possible so let’s just wait.’

  ‘You have a birth plan? Don’t you think I should know what’s in your birth plan for me?’

  ‘Relax, Stacey. Your birth plan is just based on what we know about you. We didn’t get time to discuss it in depth. You’ve sprung this on me a little you know?’

  ‘Well, what does it say?’ No cutting me under any circumstances.

  ‘It’s in your document file—’ He opens his mouth to speak but I shout.

  ‘Fuck your website, why not talk to me about it?’

  Jeff raises his eyebrows and steps back.

  ‘It’s okay, Stacey. I’ll get the nurses to bring you a tablet with the document up on it.’

  I try to breathe, not give way to fury at this moment when I need him to be at his kindest.

  ‘Can I make changes?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s very simple so there probably isn’t anything in there you don’t ascribe to yourself. We based it on your previous births and our own intentions to keep it as natural as possible. We want her to have the best head start we can give her.’

  ‘No drugs?’

  ‘No. An epidural late in the birth if you really need it. It’s important to keep any variables out of the process. If anything goes wrong, we want to know what it is. So any drugs will interfere with our knowledge of that.’

  ‘You’re excited.’

  ‘Of course. We’re doing an amazing thing here, you and I.’

  ‘Isak too.’

  ‘You are great parents. She’s very lucky.’

  I wa
nt to slap the sparkle from his eyes, but I lower my gaze and sip some chamomile tea instead.

  ‘I’ll send a nurse in to update your obs. They’ll call me when you go into labour.’

  He hangs the clipboard back in its pouch and pats my hand. ‘I’ll ask one of the nurses to come and read through the plan with you.’ He flicks back the curtain to the hallway. ‘You need to relax, get a bit of sleep and eat what you can, Stacey.’

  I text Isak—‘might be a while, no rush’. I finish all I can of the eggs. He returns—‘okay. Organising kids. There soon.’

  From the window a flush of yellow wattle surrounds the low foliage and a honeyeater busies itself, shifting the blossoms, which shake in a strong wind. Cloud cover mutes the morning light, growing dark with storm. I try to breathe deeply and not imagine the next few hours. The ordeal of giving life is always a journey of fire. Some stories might be shorter or involve less horror but there is suffering in even the mildest of experiences. I watch the bird and try not to step back but in my memory is the sensation of soft flesh slipping out of me, that terrible feeling of trying to hold on to a baby that is already lost. Trying to hold the muscles tight to stop it leaving. The force of expulsion tearing through without mercy. Agony compounded by the pain of death. And the aftermath of bleeding and tears and dark, dark days.

  When I wake, Isak is sitting in the chair by my bedside reading something on his phone. I smell coffee. He smiles and puts his phone aside, grabs my hand.

  ‘Any pain yet?’ He is wearing the green Ireland T-shirt he wore for Emmy’s and Jake’s births.

  ‘Lucky shirt again, huh?’ I adjust myself on the pillows and a dragging pain, deep in my belly, tightens across my abdomen. A sharp response in my lower back. I breathe deep into it, drawing my focus inwards. It goes on. Eases but remains as an echo.

  When I open my eyes, he is standing over me, stroking my hair. Brow drawn together.

  ‘Want me to call them?’ His breath is short and coffee scented.

  ‘They’ll come soon enough.’ I try to relax in the interval. ‘Have you timed it?’

  He raises his phone.

  I see nothing on the screen, my focus holds only myself, Isak, a small perimeter around us both. It is as if the world has shrunken, yet it is as full as it can be. I sip water, wait. As expected, the tight, sharp cramp returns. It spreads, dragging me into it until my whole consciousness is immersed in my abdomen, kicking and scratching at the gateway to life. Grinding against my lower back. I curl in on myself, roll on my side and am swallowed whole. Released. A nurse at the foot of the bed. She lifts the sheet, my dress, presses her hand around on my belly. Her touch is molten iron. I bat her hand away. She speaks to Isak.

  ‘Stacey, they’re going to take us to the birthing rooms. They asked if you’d like to go in the bath for a while. It’ll ease the pain.’

  I nod and it returns. Absorbs me into its force, gorging itself, taking me further into its throat. Tightens.

  They move me into a wheelchair. I see the floor of the elevator, chrome plate distorting our reflections. Later my bare feet, the garden dress thrown over the back of a blue chair. Warm water around me, dim lights. I try to talk to Isak between the contractions.

  ‘It’s really bad in my back. Not like the other kids, as far as I remember.’

  ‘Want me to tell them?’

  I nod. Grab his hand so he can’t leave me.

  Tightening again, it holds me rigid in the water, pitched at the highest point for long moments. The water runs warm against my feet. A nurse comes in, her hand in the water on my skin. Words spoken around me as if I have gone. Far away. It does not stop. Takes hold of me again and again, determined to consume me. Determined to squeeze me into its hot gullet.

  In the hiatus, they lift me from the water. I pull myself down against their grip, but someone is behind me, lifting me up.

  ‘Come on, Stacey, you have to get out of here, you’ve lost some blood. We need to check how far you’ve dilated.’

  ‘Is it time?’

  I am back in a room, in a cotton gown, no pants. There are people around me. Jeff. He bends over my raised knees. I feel pressure inside. The flick of latex gloves.

  ‘Yep, time to start pushing.’ Isak is behind my head, holding both hands. His face is pale, tired, eyes wide. I wonder what horror he is witnessing.

  Then it grabs me, tears me down, down. I cry out. Throat sore. My knees are bent up on the bed, some hands on my feet. It sears, burns—my flesh stretching. Tearing. I push against it, push further into the pain, into the tear. Can almost hear it rip. My voice rasping like a beast. Let me die. Please let me die.

  I breathe, push again, further into the pain until I feel the bulk of her head emerging. Held breaths.

  The surface tension finally breaks with the swell of another motion, rising and tearing forward. I surge, rise up from myself into the night sky. See the spire of the church. A lamb. My voice like bees held in the air.

  Isak meets my eyes. ‘She’s nearly here.’

  ‘Yep, one more push and her head will be out.’ Jeff’s face shines with sweat and thrill.

  Like gathering cloud it rushes in, swirls into my whole self.

  On a dreary night in November I push her into the world, a trail of my spine grating into fragments. And finally, in the slipstream, all of her is given. The air utters something like wonder.

  They speak, lift her. Isak jerks out of the way. She is on my body. Bluish grey. My accomplishment.

  A loud beep and flashing light. They take her. To my left I see them suctioning inside her mouth, cover her. I cannot breathe. I watch it all. Waiting.

  Waiting.

  Until finally, she cries.

  POST-PARTUM

  Tiny and fair-skinned. Doctors and nurses huddle around her. Counting, measuring. Gasps and exclamations—amazing. Someone says ‘well done’ to someone over there.

  The contraction continues, now almost painless, expelling the placenta and various bloody clots and liquids. Finally the pull of stitches and an icy pad to reduce the swelling. All is numb. I see the nurse carefully collect it all in a silver dish.

  Isak looks exhausted, kisses my forehead and holds my hand. A silent sentinel, he looks over at the stainless-steel trolley where she is under scrutiny. Looks at my eyes. The knot of serious faces around the trolley holds my gaze a moment and he looks again.

  ‘Everything okay over there?’

  Jeff turns to us, smile like a new father. ‘Oh, yes. Just a minute and you can have her back.’ Through the group, a young woman with a camera is focused closely on her. Tracing every inch of her. Each moment the sinew between us stretches. Aches. They lift me, replace the sheets and finally cover me with a thin blanket. My head still turned to the trolley.

  A nurse wraps her in a cotton rug and hands her to Jeff, who looks down into her face, smiling. ‘Isak, come and take this beautiful child.’

  He does not hesitate and I know he has bonded with her too.

  Jeff hands her to him. ‘Do you have a name for her yet?’

  Isak looks at me.

  ‘Asta,’ I whisper. And he brings her to me at last.

  I know she is mine. Like a gush, the force of motherhood flows from me painting her in my blood again. She is twisted into every cell of me, bound like a helix to my core. Her little face like a pixie, broad cheeks, a wide, flat nose. Perfect rosy lips. A generous spray of russet hair. I touch her cheek and she opens her huge eyes. Like nothing I have seen, the irises dark blue and wider than normal. The whites reduced to a narrow rim. It is this that sets her apart more than the shape of her face; sets her apart from my other children. Yet she is mine, perhaps more mine. And I more hers.

  Isak gasps at the sight of her eyes. A wonder. And perhaps that quaver at the end, the edge of horror.

  I begin to unwrap her, unaware that the audience has turned to me. Jeff circles the bed. ‘We are going to have to put her under some heat for a few hours, Stacey. Just to monitor her and mak
e sure she is okay. Don’t let her get cold, okay.’

  I wrap the rug back around her, stroke her cheek. A nurse pushes a mobile plastic crib into the room, lifts the lid and plugs it into the wall.

  ‘Now, let’s get her stable and then you can have her back.’ Jeff reaches down to take her but I hold her a moment more. Printing myself in her gaze. Those eyes, human eyes but not human.

  ‘You’ll get your time, Stacey. Let them make sure she’s okay.’ Isak takes my hand. ‘Asta.’ He says it as if to himself. ‘I like it.’ But he looks a little puzzled.

  ‘I thought she needed something unique. Asta Mary, I thought.’

  He smiles and shakes his head. ‘Why Mary?’

  ‘After Mary Shelley.’ I don’t think he gets the connection. ‘The author.’ There were a few classics in my mother’s suitcase library. I don’t mention what she wrote.

  A blonde nurse comes to my bedside. ‘Stacey, let’s get you to a shower and back in your own room.’ And she lifts the blanket. The new sheet already bloody.

  Back in the room, they have cleaned and arranged flowers by the window. Prop me up on rustling pillows. I am sore now, the numbness has gone and cramps continue in the aftermath. The frozen pad renewed to take down the swelling. I feel war-torn, my body a soft jumble of shock and organs trying to re-establish order.

  Isak is gone—home to sleep and to speak to the children. There are strict instructions, he said. The website is very specific about who can come to the clinic and visit. Only the parents and their children. No other relatives can know where the clinic is, or visit. Strictly no unauthorised visitors. They gave an address for flowers and gifts, to be delivered offsite. This is not a hospital, it said, but a clinic designed for limited public access. Part of our non-disclosure clause apparently.

  I don’t know what time of day it is but I am energised, can’t sleep. Waiting for them to bring her back to me. I stare at the flowers. Not the same ones Isak brought me before. The orange lilies are gone. Instead there are gerberas, white chrysanthemums. Pink rosebuds. From the dewdrop on the roses I can tell they aren’t real. A card with ‘love Mum’ printed in someone else’s handwriting.