For some women, giving birth resembles checking into the honeymoon suite of a posh hotel. They bring along a CD player to fill the room with soft jazz, and spray bottles of lavender and vanilla for a calming aromatherapy experience. A husband or partner— appropriately misty-eyed and awed— professes his undying love and whips out a little black jewelry box moments after the perfect cherub is born.
For me? Well, if giving birth is like going to a hotel, I’m usually stuck checking into a Motel 6—the one with the orange shag carpeting left over from the 1970s. The first time around, there were three of us screaming in the delivery room—our new baby, me and my husband, who’d made the epic mistake of putting a gently supportive hand on my shoulder during the “transition” stage of labor and was now staring at the fresh bite mark decorating his hand.
“She—she bit me,” my husband complained to the nurse, who quickly abandoned me to fret over him. I still defend my actions as entirely reasonable, and when I remember his complaining, I’m tempted to bite his other hand.
My first two experiences with childbirth were nothing like I’d envisioned. Unlike some women—who think they want natural labor, only to holler for that epidural when they realize “contractions” are just a polite medical term for “Holy-God-the-pain-is-unimaginable-get-that freaking-lavender-spray-out-of-my-face-NOW!”—I’m the opposite: I desperately wanted drugs, yet my first two children were born without medication (I truly do tend to run late for everything—even getting to the hospital).
This time around, I took no chances. I was so eager to get the epidural that I went to the hospital at the first twinge of a contraction, only to be told that I wasn’t in labor and I needed to go home. Um, twice. Two days before my due date, I started feeling contractions again. I called my doctor, who happens to be the brother-in-law of one of my old Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School classmates.
The doctor offered to check me in his office, sparing me the indignity of going to Sibley Hospital yet again and checking in, changing into a gown, being strapped to a monitor…and then changing back into my clothes and sheepishly walking down the hall, hanging my head so I wouldn’t meet the gaze of the admissions lady, who’d been so encouraging when I’d waddled into the hospital, clutching my stomach and dramatically exhaling.
“Please tell me this is really it,” I begged the doctor. “The contractions are five minutes apart.”
“Nope,” he said.
I stared at him, aghast: “You’re kidding!” I wailed.
“Yes, I am,” he grinned. “Go right to the hospital.”
Did I mention my old B-CC classmate was a major smart-ass, and it apparently runs in her family?
So I raced to the hospital, carrying along a big bag of candy for the labor nurses (because I’m grateful for what they do, and the fact that they do it so well, and also so that I’d be first in the epidural line) and I wore my favorite maternity T-shirt, the one that says, “You had me at epidural.” Clearly, this was no time for subtlety. The anesthesiologist arrived quickly— perhaps my Hannibal Lecter-ish reputation had preceded me and he was fearful of incurring my wrath—and he waited by my side until we were positive the epidural had taken effect. It was a beautiful, beautiful moment we shared together.
“I love that man,” I told Amy, my labor nurse, my voice husky with sincerity, as I reluctantly waved goodbye to the anesthesiologist. “Isn’t he great?” she replied. “And did you see his eyes?”
I nodded eagerly: “They’re so blue!”
“Ahem!” huffed my husband.
Another doctor from the practice— a gorgeous woman named Lynne who looks like she is barely old enough to deliver Girl Scout cookies, let alone babies (but no lingering jealousy from the woman the size of a small planet here)— came in and gave me a hug. Then she told me it was time to get down to business. I don’t think it matters how you meet your child. Whether you first catch a glimpse of his face as he is handed to you in an airport in another country, or whether he is given to you as he emerges from your own body, there just aren’t any words for how it feels.
Three pain-free hours after we got to the hospital, little Dylan Charles was nestled on my chest.
I finally had my perfect childbirth experience. And in all the important ways, it was just like the other two.
The Web site for Sarah Pekkanen’s debut novel, The Opposite of Me, scheduled for release by Atria books in early 2010, is www.sarahpekkanen.com.
