The Best day of my Life...continued

After I got out of a long warm shower, the midwives did some inspecting and measuring. The main one I think was called Mary. But she's not the one I remember the most. The one I remember the most was called Faith. She was an angelic looking older woman with super long blonde hair, and some kind of slight deformity. Of course I didn't mind about that - it was a physical thing - one leg much shorter than the other or something like that. I only met her the day that I gave birth. But (and I'm sorry if I was horrible for thinking this) her thing was significant enough to make her grab onto every piece of furniture she passed by for balance, and I was kind of worried that she wasn't physically up to the job at hand. I mean, what if she lost her balance and dropped the baby? But that thought was not nearly as terrifying as the ones that soon replaced it.

Anyway, the midwives sent me out of the bedroom so they could make it ready, and told me it would be good to walk around a little. So I did. I went outside where there was a miraculous tiny breeze. I lifted my face and closed my eyes to feel it. Just then my mother snapped a photo.

"Terry and I have been talking.." she said, "And we both think maybe you should call David."
Terry was right behind me on the porch. I looked around at her and she nodded "yes."
"And maybe he won't even come, you know? But we feel like you should at least TELL him."
"Ok." I replied, giving up. "I don't care. He probably won't come."

My mom went into the kitchen to call David, and Terry sat down with me on the front porch steps. There was an impending aura of doom settling onto the whole world as far as I was concerned. It was so nice that she was there to hold my hand, but I didn't think it would help much when I was dying in the very near future.

Sure enough, David hopped on the first flight from Dallas, and arrived at my Mom's house in plenty of time. He was in a mild panic. So was I. The contractions were becoming more and more painful and closer together just as they were supposed to. Just when I thought it couldn't hurt anymore - it DID. At one point the midwife, Mary, said "Maybe you'd like to sit on the toilet?.. maybe that would get things going." very innocently.
I just looked at her like she was crazy. I had NO intention of having this baby on the toilet, and for God's good mercy - what the HELL did she MEAN "get things going!!!???" Weren't they going enough? Things were going FAR too fast as far as I could tell! I just wanted it to stop!

Just before the pain got seriously OUT of CONTROL, my Mom asked if she could take photos.
"NO! No photos!" I said, feeling desperate and helpless.
"Oh, she won't care in a few minutes." Mary said glibly, "you just go ahead and take 'em!"
"No.." I started again, "NoOOOOAAAGGHHHHWWWWW ...MOTHER of all THINGS HOLY!!!" yea, yea yea! Things started turning a very BAD corner!
"You see? She won't even know you're doing it." Mary confirmed.
I grasped onto Terry for dear life, digging my fingernails into her poor arms. "I don't want to do this anymore!" I wailed. Then I started crying like a child. "I can't do it - I don't want to do it! I don't want a baby anymore! He can just stay in there!"
"Let's just get you into the bedroom and see what's going on, shall we?" Faith said to me sweetly as she uncurled my fingers from Terry's arm.

The midwives got me situated in my Mother's bed, in her beautiful sky blue bedroom, just in time for all the demons in hell to let loose in my body and begin to torture me from the inside out. I kept yelling at everybody that it hurt too much, and I simply was not DOWN for this kind of an experience - only in MUCH LESS ladylike terms. I do remember saying "This is NOT how it happens in the FUCKING MOVIES!!!!" , and making everyone laugh. How COULD they laugh? I was dying! I was pretty sure of it. NOTHING that hurt this badly could end well. I was outraged that they couldn't just MAKE it stop. And I was furious at myself for signing up for this routine - no doctors, no hospital, NO DRUGS.

At one point in the endless torture, David had to leave the room to throw up and almost faint. I looked at Terry and she was as white as a ghost, despite a full summer of tanning and dark, Lebanese skin. When David got back she growled at him "Don't leave." and left the room herself to do the same thing. Then, out of no-where, my Mother brought in a whole rose bush, covered in big , fat roses. She plopped it down where I could see it and gave me a huge smile.
"Well, I thought, why buy a few roses when I could get this whole bush instead. Isn't it pretty?"
These people clearly did not understand that I was dying. But, on the other hand, her cheery confidence gave me hope. Maybe I'd survive this hideous ordeal - just be left crippled from the waist down or something.

"She's fully dilated." Mary announced. "But her water has not broken at all." she looked at me and spoke very loudly, "Your water has not broken, I'm going to have to go ahead and break it, ok?"

I DIDN'T FINISH THE CLASS!!!!! WHAT the HELL does that mean???
"What...?" was all I was able to say.
"It's NO big deal..." said Mary,"I just have to go in there with a very sharp needle and break your water for you.Ok?"
NO!!!! NO!!! NO NEEDLES going in THERE!!! NOT GOOD!!! SCARY!!!!
"No, no, no..."I managed ."I don't think so. I don't think we should do....aahhhhhhhaa!!!!"
Too late. She did it during my next contraction. I didn't feel it. I was too busy feeling like someone was manually ripping and twisting my insides into pretzels of horror.

Once my water had been broken, things started to speed up, and the pain intensified five fold. I really, really didn't think I could take it. By the time I was supposed to push, I was exhausted and I just couldn't HANDLE that crazy pain. I STARTED to bawl again, and shake my head "no". But Mary grabbed me and spoke right into my face.
"You are going to need to start pushing now. But you HAVE to listen to us - so you don't tear. You NEED to concentrate, and it will all be over soon. Do you understand me?"
I nodded. I was so scared. So scared.
"Find something to focus on. Something in the room that you can look at - ok?" she spoke to me as if this were a life or death situation.
I looked around the pretty, blue room. The room had high, vaulted ceilings, and up near the top was a small, arched window with a crystal hanging in it. At just the right time of the day, this crystal would throw lots of little circular rainbows all over the room. That is what I chose to look at. It must have been later than I thought, because the the crystal was making it's rainbows.

At 2:20 in the afternoon,on September 26th, as I was staring at that crystal for what felt like my very life, a baby's head emerged from my body. It was terrifying. And also, the greatest physical relief from pain that I had ever felt. But it wasn't quite over. That moment when I had to lie there with a head out of me, and a body inside of me felt like - a long time. But it wasn't. Then the rest of his little body was pushed out by another contraction, and what felt like a sea of blood followed right after him.

There was a collective gasp in the room. Corny as it sounds, it was the miracle of childbirth. I was crying, and still not convinced that everything was ok - it definitely felt like I was bleeding to death. And it didn't help matters to look down and see yet another thing emerge from inside of me. A huge, gelatinous glob of blood.
"Aaaaa...." I muttered in horror.
"Ah, it's the placenta!" Mary said joyfully. "Faith, or someone, put this in the freezer."
Put it in the FREEZER??? Geez! I had missed a LOT in that class!

But Faith could not put the horrible thing in the freezer, because just then, she was handing me a beautiful, gnome-like baby - all wrapped up in fresh white blankets.

"You have a perfect baby boy, Jennifer." she said, beaming.
I took my perfect baby boy out of her arms and held him next to me. "He's crying!" I told her, distraught.
The midwives all laughed.
"Of course he's crying." said Faith, gently. "He's just gone through quite a journey, too."
"Oh.." I said, tears full on streaming down my face. I had never thought of that. That the whole torture could be hurting him, too.
Faith sat down beside me and guided this perfect, crying little thing to my breast. He latched on like a starving champion. And, then as he was voraciously sucking away, he finally opened his eyes. It was amazing. He looked around like he was scared, and then looked right at me. And that was moment I fell madly in love with my son. Before he even had a name.

Minutes later, my Mom was playing the Rolling Stones on the stereo, and had a bunch of pizzas delivered. The kids got home from school, and David took my 12 year old sister, Emily, down to the Fresh Plus with him to buy champagne. In our family's typical tradition, it was a party. With champagne and pizza flowing, the guests and family turned to me to announce the baby's name.
"It's Max." I said.
"Ok, but, Maxamilion, or Maxwell...?" someone asked. (maybe my Uncle)
"Nope. Just Max." I said. "from 'Where the Wild Things Are'."

Meanwhile, in New York City, Stuart Richardson burst into Hilary Aptowitz's acting class on the afternoon of HER birthday, September 26th.
"Jennifer has had a baby boy!" he announced, hugging Hilary.

Sometime, later that night, a little before midnight, I woke up to nurse my little Max in the bit of moonlight that was pouring through that arched window. All of the world was asleep except the two of us. His little head already smelled so good.
I repeated what I had told him when I first found out I was pregnant.
"Now, listen here, kid. I'm not going to change who I am just because of you - or change my life." I whispered. "You're just going to have to come along for my adventures, ok? That's just going to have to be good enough. I'm practically a kid myself. But I'll never leave you. Never. It's you and me, baby. Just you and me."


The placenta was taken out of the freezer the next day and planted along with the rose bush in my Mother's front yard. It bloomed like crazy for years and years.
And to this day, my Mother is fond of letting guests discover the photo album in her living room that starts out with photos of me in labor, and moves quickly into graphic photos of me giving birth to Max with rainbows all over my thighs and belly. There's even a rainbow on Max's head - just as he's coming out.