Feel free to give me your thoughts, too. Gently, though, please.
__________________________________________
Expert
I spend the day pretending not to feel
contractions. One cinches my stomach, a yanked seatbelt feeling, as I navigate Portland ’s noon traffic.
I grimace and turn up the radio, smile dumbly at passing drivers. At home I
reread the chapter in my pregnancy manual about false labor, eat a sandwich,
rub my belly.
Later, I watch Monday Night Football and
compare the slamming linebackers to this tiny human tackling my internal organs. I
groan, poke a heel from under my ribs. I wander to the computer room, move a
stack of papers from one shelf to another, return to the game. When my husband
comes in, I mention the contractions. His eyes narrow, he counts the days to
our due date, but I repeat facts from the manual. He nods, convinced, and we go
to bed.
I cannot sleep. The baby gyroscopes
whenever I adjust my body, creating a brisk countermovement. I try to lie
still, stare at the ceiling, but even my breathing inspires him to reorient
with each exhalation. My husband asks if everything is okay. Yes, I growl, I’m fine.
I sit up, click on the light and lean for a
book on my nightstand. The baby rolls like a child’s bowling ball bumpering
down its lane. My eyes skim over words mechanically until a stab across my
abdomen snatches my breath. I hiss through my teeth expertly, a skill learned
in childbirth class. When the pain passes, I wait with teeth bared for the
next. I turn pages until it attacks, slashing harder than the others. My
husband opens an eye. What is going on?
he mumbles. I've got this, I say, hissing.
I slouch out of bed, the baby a giant
roiling marble under my skin, and shuffle toward the stairs. I consider them
but decide instead to move papers in the computer room again until another mean
squeeze stops me. I lean against the wall, stare at the clock. Eight minutes
tick away before the next contraction. Like my husband earlier, I recount the
number of days left.
I run a bath and heave into steaming water.
My husband opens the door, peers into the bright bathroom. What, he pauses, staring, are
you doing? One leg contorts over the edge of the tub, I hold a razor in my
left hand. He blinks. Should I call?
I glance at the clock - almost 4 a.m. - press my lips to a white line. Another
contraction. Hissssss. Okay. I twist
back to my stubble, concentrating. Razor steady, I shave both legs.
We negotiate construction zones and tighter, faster
contractions. At the hospital, a crowd of medical students surrounds us, fixes
me with a paper gown, monitors, probes, punctures. Carefully packed suitcase
abandoned. A beeping heartbeat quickens then slows. I sink to hands and knees,
slide a clipboard placed on my right across the bed so I can sign the release. Husband? I can see only unfamiliar eyes
alert and tense under so many masks. I lie down, wait, breathe, one last hiss. Then there is my
husband, changed into sterile clothes, eyes wide and ready under his mask. He
holds my hand as we roll to the operating room.
4 comments:
Walk this in to your workshop proudly.
So much anticipation. I'm hooked. I am both satisfied and I want more.
takes me right back to a day so long ago, very evocative.
I like it too, evocative, feels like it needs another sentence, feel like I'm left hanging.
Precisely why I had my epiphany:
Wanna see a perfectly cognizant, fully-spectacular, Son-ripened-Heaven?? … yet, I’m not sure if we're on the same page if you saw what I saw. Greetings, earthling. Because I was an actual NDE on the outskirts of the Great Beyond at 15 yet wasn’t allowed in, lemme share with you what I actually know Seventh-Heaven’s Big-Bang’s gonna be like: meet this advanced, bombastic, ex-mortal Upstairs for the most extra-groovy-paradox, pleasure-beyond-measure, Ultra-Yummy-Reality-Addiction in the Great Beyond for a BIG-ol, kick-ass, party-hardy, robust-N-risqué-passion you DO NOT wanna miss the sink-your-teeth-in-the-smmmokin’-hot-deal. Cya soon…
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