On the drive home, I’d asked S if we were ready. “Hell yeah we are,” he’d said, squeezing my knee.
“I know it’s scary,” I hummed later, sitting alone on our red couch, my hands on my belly. “But we’ll do it together.” I wasn’t sure if I was addressing my son or my body. Probably both.
* * *
THE RUSH OF warmth between my legs interrupted my sleep, and I sat up straight in the bed. I threw the covers off to reveal a growing wet spot on the sheet. The soft light of the TV cast a shadow on my belly, making it look like a crescent moon.
“It’s happening,” I exclaimed, leaping up.
As S scrambled to get everything ready to leave for the hospital, I labored on all fours, staring at the checkered tile of our bathroom. My body felt like it was cracking open; the pain was all-encompassing, rippling through my core and spreading to every corner of my being. The contractions were coming without a break, and as one peaked, I felt gripped by sudden panic. I was desperate to make the pain stop, but I was trapped. I bit down, clenching my teeth.
“There is no going back,” I said to myself, resting my forehead against the cold floor and lacing my hands behind my neck. I tried to remember to breathe. What would happen now to me and my baby? Our lives were on the line, but there was nothing I could do to ensure our safety. Our survival now depended on the mysterious mechanisms of my body.
Someone had told me that in order to dilate, a woman’s brain waves have to slow down and reach a similar state to orgasm. It was odd to think about sex at the moment of childbirth, but as another contraction seared down my spine, it was a relief to remember that my body was capable of pleasure and release. I tried to fill my mind with blankness. I let the contraction consume me.
Suddenly a new sensation: trust. My body had gotten me this far, hadn’t it? It was resilient. It had sheltered my growing son for nine months and kept his heart beating while his entire, complicated self developed inside me. Now it was opening up, right on schedule. I knew then that I had to let go. Despite my fear, I calmed. I surrendered.
When we arrived at the hospital, I crawled through the lobby and contorted against the elevator wall. At the delivery ward, a woman asked me my name while I crouched down next to a chair, pushing my head against its arm. I was there but not really. I was inside my body, a machine that was tearing along viciously with no regard for anything or anyone. I concentrated, refusing to let my brain interrupt my body’s workings from functioning. It knew what to do. I just needed to stay out of the way.
The sun rose an hour before it was time to begin pushing. Pink and orange light filtered through the blinds into the hospital room. Striped shadows splayed across the walls. As I pushed, I asked for a mirror. I wanted to see my body. I wanted to witness its progress.
I threw up in a small plastic container that a nurse held to my mouth. Everything was bright. There was no color—just white light. It was morning, the city was waking up. I thought about the coffee being consumed, the hot showers, the lovers saying their goodbyes from a night spent together. Millions of people went about their rituals as they prepared their bodies for another day of life. Birth is as unremarkable as any of those small events: at all times, there is a woman’s body in labor. It is both so extraordinary and so common, the way our bodies take us through our lives.
I felt a stab in my pelvis and through my lower back. The contractions guided the room; their rhythms determined everything. I announced each time when one began to peak and the nurse, doctor, and S rushed to get into position next to me and then, like a tide, receded and dispersed again. I was rewarded with every push: a respite from the pain and then a glimpse of the top of my son’s head.
In the mirror positioned above me I no longer recognized my face: it was puffy and red, and the veins at my temple were pronounced and throbbing. My body was swollen and raw and unfamiliar. Everything had transformed. My baby’s heartbeat crackled through the monitor.
I heard a voice say something about how it had been too long, that the baby was too big and I was too small. “May have to get the vacuum,” the doctor said. No, I thought.
“Push!” S said, holding my head in his hands and pressing his forehead to mine. I shut my eyes.
“You get to meet your son soon!” the nurses had said as encouragement. I’d never before understood when people described birth as a meeting, but now I did.
* * *
I FELT HIM, his body on my chest, but more acutely his presence in the room.
In a daze, I held him to me. Of my flesh, I thought. The mirror was pushed to the side, but I could still see the place from where he emerged. My body.