working a two-day shift. All the doctors at the New York Hospital obstetrics department looked like glamorous TV actors—understudies for the cast of ER. Tara would be appearing tonight in the role of my ob-gyn.
Per Tara’s instructions, I called her with updates on the contractions throughout the day. She told me to spend Sunday night at home and come in Monday, or when the contractions were really hurting, whichever came first. Michael brought Julia over to Sophie’s, where Susan and Mark would take care of her.
I had a sleepless night—every contraction woke me. Monday at sunrise the contractions were quite painful. Michael and I cabbed to New York Hospital on York Avenue and Sixty-seventh Street.
“Your cervix hasn’t even begun to dilate,” Tara scolded, as if I hadn’t turned in my homework on time. Without warning, she dilated me by hand, using her fingers to stretch open the os, the hole in the cervix.
“OW! OW! THAT HURTS,” I screamed, as I felt my cervix ripping.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet. Now you guys walk back to the West Side, and keep walking. You got to get this thing moving. You’re nowhere near ready to deliver. Don’t come back until the contractions hurt so much you can’t stand it anymore.”
We walked the width of Manhattan, from the hospital by the East River, to Riverside Park on the Hudson River. Every few minutes, as a contraction rolled through, I groaned and doubled over, using Michael’s shoulder for support. We walked in Riverside Park, with a halting rhythm—walk, contraction, groan, double over, walk, contraction, groan, double over—punctuated by conversations with curious and congratulatory passersby, my spontaneous nosebleed, and a sunset over New Jersey.
We went to a coffee shop on Broadway for dinner, an absurd place to be in labor but Michael was very hungry, and in the ever-shorter moments between contractions, so was I. Squeezed into our booth at Café 83, with barely room for my stomach, I tried to silence my groans during contractions, between bites of a cheeseburger.
“When are you due?” asked the young blond sitting with her boyfriend at the table next to us.
“RIGHT NOW!” I roared through gritted teeth, gripping the table at an especially intense contraction. The couple quickly paid their check and left.
“You just ended their relationship,” Michael teased. “They were probably talking about how much they both want children, but you put the kibosh on that, didn’t you?”
Now I was laughing while having a contraction, a bizarre sensation. Michael enjoyed the spectacle, so he kept up a comic monologue while I alternated between laughing and roaring in pain. The biological imperative of going into labor, the adrenalin, the hormones, the cheeseburger, Michael’s sense of humor, the absurdity of the situation released me from my obsessive fears.
At six in the evening, when I couldn’t stand the pain, we went back to the hospital. I clung to the reception desk, doubled over, as my next contraction reached a new level of intensity.
“That’s more like it,” said Tara cheerily.
The nurse helped me into a cotton gown and into a high-tech bed, surrounded by machines and monitors. The young Indian anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural. “I am going to insert a catheter into the space at the bottom of your spine. For one-out-of-a-hundred women, it will feel as though you have been shot in the back with a gun. If that is the case, your left leg will kick involuntarily.”
It felt like I was shot in the back with a gun, and my left leg kicked involuntarily. I’m the queen of the one-in-a-hundred chance. I guess dying in childbirth is next. The pain quickly subsided, but the violence of the sensation made my body pessimistic. I distracted myself from this newest trauma by wondering if the baby would have a penis or something penislike. What would it look like? Would it be an entirely new genital shape? Would it be nameable? Would
Per Tara’s instructions, I called her with updates on the contractions throughout the day. She told me to spend Sunday night at home and come in Monday, or when the contractions were really hurting, whichever came first. Michael brought Julia over to Sophie’s, where Susan and Mark would take care of her.
I had a sleepless night—every contraction woke me. Monday at sunrise the contractions were quite painful. Michael and I cabbed to New York Hospital on York Avenue and Sixty-seventh Street.
“Your cervix hasn’t even begun to dilate,” Tara scolded, as if I hadn’t turned in my homework on time. Without warning, she dilated me by hand, using her fingers to stretch open the os, the hole in the cervix.
“OW! OW! THAT HURTS,” I screamed, as I felt my cervix ripping.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet. Now you guys walk back to the West Side, and keep walking. You got to get this thing moving. You’re nowhere near ready to deliver. Don’t come back until the contractions hurt so much you can’t stand it anymore.”
We walked the width of Manhattan, from the hospital by the East River, to Riverside Park on the Hudson River. Every few minutes, as a contraction rolled through, I groaned and doubled over, using Michael’s shoulder for support. We walked in Riverside Park, with a halting rhythm—walk, contraction, groan, double over, walk, contraction, groan, double over—punctuated by conversations with curious and congratulatory passersby, my spontaneous nosebleed, and a sunset over New Jersey.
We went to a coffee shop on Broadway for dinner, an absurd place to be in labor but Michael was very hungry, and in the ever-shorter moments between contractions, so was I. Squeezed into our booth at Café 83, with barely room for my stomach, I tried to silence my groans during contractions, between bites of a cheeseburger.
“When are you due?” asked the young blond sitting with her boyfriend at the table next to us.
“RIGHT NOW!” I roared through gritted teeth, gripping the table at an especially intense contraction. The couple quickly paid their check and left.
“You just ended their relationship,” Michael teased. “They were probably talking about how much they both want children, but you put the kibosh on that, didn’t you?”
Now I was laughing while having a contraction, a bizarre sensation. Michael enjoyed the spectacle, so he kept up a comic monologue while I alternated between laughing and roaring in pain. The biological imperative of going into labor, the adrenalin, the hormones, the cheeseburger, Michael’s sense of humor, the absurdity of the situation released me from my obsessive fears.
At six in the evening, when I couldn’t stand the pain, we went back to the hospital. I clung to the reception desk, doubled over, as my next contraction reached a new level of intensity.
“That’s more like it,” said Tara cheerily.
The nurse helped me into a cotton gown and into a high-tech bed, surrounded by machines and monitors. The young Indian anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural. “I am going to insert a catheter into the space at the bottom of your spine. For one-out-of-a-hundred women, it will feel as though you have been shot in the back with a gun. If that is the case, your left leg will kick involuntarily.”
It felt like I was shot in the back with a gun, and my left leg kicked involuntarily. I’m the queen of the one-in-a-hundred chance. I guess dying in childbirth is next. The pain quickly subsided, but the violence of the sensation made my body pessimistic. I distracted myself from this newest trauma by wondering if the baby would have a penis or something penislike. What would it look like? Would it be an entirely new genital shape? Would it be nameable? Would
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