The Best Day of My Life.

Sometimes the very best things come from, or after the very worst things. For, instance, sometimes great RELIEF from something hard or bad is part of the following happiness. In this post, I am writing about a DAY. Just one day. And this one day came not too long after what was the very worst day of my life.

This day started at about 3 am. I was living at my mother's house, in Austin. I was sleeping on an army cot in her dining room, but on this occasion, I was in my little sisters' room, sleeping (or trying to) on her single bed. It was late September. An Indian summer that year in Austin, Texas. All the way through September, the heat was unbearable. And my mother did not have air conditioning. We girls ( my Mom, sisters and I ) would put our nightgowns on before bed, then take a cold shower IN our nightgowns so that our soaking wet nightgowns would keep us cool for long enough to fall asleep. It doesn't cool down at night in Texas. Not the way it does out here in LA. It's often over a hundred degrees at 2 in the morning there.

But on this evening (the evening before my day in question started) I had not taken a cold shower. It was still hot, but not unbearable that night. I was so grateful to have a real bed to sleep in. It was like being at a grand hotel or something that evening - pure luxury! Only, I couldn't sleep. At 3 am, I found myself rolling and tossing, clutching my chest and my belly. And I was regretting not taking that cold shower, too. I was covered in sweat.
"What the hell did I eat tonight?" I thought as I tried to FORCE myself to sleep."Just my luck..." I thought, "the one night I get to sleep in an actual bed and I've got food poisoning or something."

By 4:30 am, the pain was greater, and I also felt like I was going to throw up. I was so tired. So, so tired - I was worried that when I needed to throw up, I wouldn't make it to the toilet in time. I was contemplating going in there and laying my head on the cool tiles of the bathroom. I would not be able to forgive myself if I barfed all over my little sister's bed, or any of her many stuffed animals or barbies. Just as I was about to make the move into the bathroom, my mother came in.

"Hey, are you ok?" she asked, rubbing my back and instinctively putting her hand on my forehead.

"Not really.." I sort of moaned. "I think I ate something bad.."
"Oh no." She said with a very worried look.
"How did you know I was feeling bad?" I asked.
"Jennifer, you've been in here moaning for over an hour."
"I have?" I asked. I hadn't been aware of any moaning out loud. Ugh! I felt TERRIBLE about waking her up in the middle of the night. Just then, I felt a deep, horrible and sharp pain, accompanied by terrible nausea. This next moan WAS a little loud.

"Jennifer, " (all of a sudden, my mother looked very alert, and all business),"I think it's time to call the midwives."

"...Ohhh....ohhhh God.." I was still moaning at the pain. It came in a great big wave. Every wave was starting to hurt noticeably more, and seemed to last longer.
"No!" I said. "It can't be now!" I looked at my mother in a panic."I haven't finished the CLASS!"

All at once, I was filled with dread. Not like some vague thing - but PURE FEAR.No, no, no, NO! No baby today! I had at least a WEEK! They had told me so - maybe more than a week! I wasn't ready. No one told me it was going to hurt this much - no, no, no, NOOOO!

I probably looked like a crazy person to my Mom. I shook my head and started to slither down to the floor. "No, no. I think it's something I ate, I really do! I just need to go into the bathroom, because I think I'm going to throw up....You go back to bed - I'll be fine! I'll be quiet, I promise..." I was chattering away like a crazy person as I started to straighten up and head for the bathroom. This was food poisoning - or bad gas! This was NOT a baby!
"I'll just lay down in there..oh...OHHHH...Awuuuua!"
The next cramp brought me to my knees, but I tried to WILL it into being food cramps - if I believed it hard enough, that's JUST what they'd be... I crawled on hands and knees to the bathroom. I HAD to get near to that toilet!

My mother just sort of looked at me, I think. I was not entirely present. The combination of unprecidented pain, fear and denial were taking me to another place.

"Ok. " my Mother said, looking almost a little scared herself, "It's going to be ok. You stay in the bathroom if you want, and I'm going to call the midwives. Should I call David?"

*************************

I met David when I was 18 years old. At a bar. In Dallas, Texas. I was there, modeling and doing commercials for the summer, and somehow I ended up in this bar all by myself. I remember what it looked like. It was all black and white tile inside - very cool, very eighties, pretty dark. David was 28 yrs old, sitting at the bar, wearing a suit. There were a bunch of guys there wearing suits, but David was the only suit in the place that didn't immediately seem like a tool.
He was charming, bought me some drinks, and before we knew it, he was driving me 'home' to the suburbs out by DFW, where I was staying with my girlfriend. He was drunk, and showing off. He blared his stereo, drove 80 miles an hour around these crazy roller coaster-like freeways they have there, and sang "I wear my sunglasses at night.." WHILE he was wearing his sunglasses. I was only 18, but he was losing my respect.
Luckily for me, he gained it back when he walked me to the door and only kissed me very softly on the cheek good night.

We began dating that week. For the first time, I had a well-off, good looking older man courting me. And he didn't seem that much older. He was a party animal. We were always going out - dancing, parties, little trips, and....fine dining. David introduced me to great food. He took me to the best restaurants in Dallas, Houston and Austin - he took me to New Orleans and to dinner at The Commander's Palace. AND he started to teach me how to cook. We were two Taurus', and we dove full speed into everything physical, everything sensual.

A year and a half later,we found out that I was pregnant, and it all changed.

I was happy about it. Really happy. It hadn't been planned, of course, but I felt so strongly that it was meant to happen.

No one else was happy. David was furious. Not gentlemanly at all. He stopped touching me. He treated me like I was a leper even though I had never felt more beautiful. My family treated me like a teenage pregnant whore. They tried to send me to some Catholic place in Arkansas for wayward, pregnant whores. My own, wonderful grandmother disowned me. And, strangely enough, the person who came through for me was my step mother. I hadn't even been speaking to her. I just figured that since she and my Dad had divorced she wouldn't want to have anything to do with his kids.

But that wasn't the case. She welcomed me into her VERY full and chaotic house in Austin when I was eight months pregnant and had no-where else to go. She was going through a wild, post-divorce period, and had all of these gorgeous Israelis staying at her house and coming over all the time. The most gorgeous of them all was her boyfriend. He'd come racing over on his motorcycle and swoop her up. Or we'd make a great big dinner with lots of salad and listen to the adventures of a new Israeli traveler. Or her best friend, Lisa, would have a dance party at her cool apartment right around the corner. One of the Israeli guys had a monkey.A spider monkey that ran around like mad in my Mom's house, and got insanely jealous if I or any other girl sat next to her master.

My Mom counceled reconciliation with David. But he came to visit in September and had the bad taste of showing me photos from a sleepover he'd just thrown. He showed me photos of himself in PJ bottoms surrounded by four or five girls in tiny, lacy night things.
"Why are you showing me these?" I had asked him, my heart breaking inside of me.
"I don't know. They're kind of fun."
"Are you showing me these to let me know you haven't been FAITHFUL?" I asked, glaring.
"Well, hey....you know.." he tried to make it all seem like a joke. I didn't know. I fucking hated him right then. He didn't deserve me OR this baby.

********************

As my Mother looked at me for an answer, those photos flooded back into my head. He had only shown them to me about a week before.
"NOOOO!!!!" I wailed. "NO DAVID. And I REALLY think you don't need to call the midwives! It's just my stomach..."
But she was gone, and another wave of pain came over me. "Son of a BITCH", I thought. "This is HORRIBLE!"

In less than an hour, the midwives were there busily doing things and ordering people around. They sent me into a warm shower to help with the pain. My Mom handed me her favorite robe to get into when I was done. She told the midwives I could have the baby in her bedroom. At some point, my little brother and sisters checked in with me before school. I could hear them begging to be allowed to stay home.
"No, no. You guys better go to school - this could take all day! First babies take forever - she probably won't have it until after school anyway." our Mom told them. But Alice made a dive for me. "Promise you won't have the baby until I get back, ok?"she demanded, straight into my eyes.
"Ok. I'll try." I said.
"Or if you ARE having it - MAKE them pick me up from school, early, ok? I can help."
I shook my head weakly, another contraction beginning to roll in.

After the little kids went off to school, my best childhood friend arrived. Terry. She was my coach. She went with me to this hippie-garage place to take classes with a bunch of couples. They all thought we were a lesbian couple. I didn't care. It seemed better than not being in a couple at ALL in my condition.