Far Bird

Here it is: transition. 

“No,” I bellow, “I can’t. I won’t.” 

At the next contraction and urge to push I howl; I roar. I slip past myself, and in this new place, I cackle. If I continue on I will fall off the map. So I must stop. Of course, I’ll just stop. But how? 

“No, no,” I scream at the next one and tighten every muscle I’ve spent the day relaxing, holding myself as a bulwark against this. 

Pain crashes through me. The pushing sensation makes me feel close to vomiting as I buck in the water.

Vaguely I think about the tenants. Can they hear me? I don’t care; it’s just there’s a small part of me that’s watching all this and wondering, idly, about how far noise carries. Again Karen tells me not to shout. 

“You need to direct that energy down, down and out,” she says. “You need to hold your breath and push like you’re pushing out a poo.” 

But I can’t. I cannot change direction again, cannot change my breath again. 

“Fuck,” I scream long and loud, proud that I haven’t attached a “you” to that statement. 

Ricky, Bianca and Karen begin to cheerlead, telling me to Push! Push! like in the movies. I think it is ridiculous. Why should I push when I could just do that breathing I was doing? What good is pushing? For what? I remember the hypnobirthing coach saying you should breathe out your baby. What about that? What about the “J” breath?

But I cannot say any of this, and I cannot fight, so I push. I have completely forgotten why I’m in the pool, what the point of any of this is. All I know is the now, the pain and the swell and the swish of water. All I know is the huff of my breath and the weird in my body, the power and the pressure.

Bianca says, “You are a portal”, and I want to scoff. Silly, so silly, though I wrote those words for my doula to say to me in my birth plan. Everything is faintly absurd, everyone. Who are these people cheering and shouting? 

I bear down. More of the pressure, but no movement. How do I direct my breath? How do I move energy down? I remember reading somewhere that words have more power when spoken out loud, so I say, Dooooown. I breathe out, Down, down, oh, dooooown. They begin chanting with me, Yes, yes, dooooown. Push!

I wish I were alone. I wish I were somehow gone, just a smudge, an inkling of light left behind. I push, but without hope. I push because I am commanded to. I push and feel the endlessness of this. I know I will always be here, in this moment, expanding beyond my limit, then splitting. I am told to move positions, first squatting with Ricky behind me, then on one side and then the other. 

Every so often Karen uses the doppler to check the baby’s heart. Now she checks again, but can’t find it. She finds only my heart, the deep pound. I’m in a squat and have been reluctant to move but she pushes me back while Ricky pulls me. It’s fast; I’m just about flipped over. I don’t know what the fuss is about, or what they’re talking about really. Baby? What baby? What heartbeat? I just want to get back to the point, which is now to push, to hold my breath till my eyeballs burst.

I wait for the next contraction while Ricky breathes hard and fast behind me, gripping my shoulder, and Karen frantically moves the doppler around the bottom of my belly. What is their problem?, I wonder. Then a fast beat comes through and Ricky’s hand relaxes. Silly, I think, then, again, I push. 

“Feel your baby,” Karen commands and I reach down and feel something surprisingly soft between my labia. But still, I don’t quite twig onto what it is – a baby emerging. All I can do is push and tear, feel the acid burn as her head moves down during a push and then back up again, over and over.

Dimly I’m aware of one of our dogs dancing on the top of the stairs. It’s 5pm, dinnertime. Then the dogs are gone, all but one, who refuses to leave. Who moved them? I surge and push. They yell for me to push even when I’m not contracting, and I try, half ironically. It’s almost like I’m in a play or playing a game in which I must appease these apparitions floating in my vision and shouting at me. Inside I’m smirking, a part of me thinking, “Fools”. I will disappear soon and then this will all be cleared up. 

Then, in one huge push and a screaming, searing tear, her head is born and in the next surge, her body. It comes out, flub, all at once. Karen is holding her under water. 

“Push out her legs,” she says. 

And I want to say, “Why don’t you pull, you idiot?” 

And then she’s in my arms. 

Who is in my arms? She. A baby. I’m very, very confused. Now there is a baby here. She is grey. 

“Oh, oh,” I keep saying. “Oh, oh, oh.” I shake my head. 

She looks at me, and I at her. We are both frowning, neither making a sound now. They’re rubbing her back. 

“The cord was round her neck,” Karen says, and, “Cry, now, baby, cry, come on.” 

And she gives a small cry, still looking at me. They keep rubbing her back. Her breathing is laboured and wheezy. 

Ricky and I are given instructions. Hold her head. Keep her in the water for warmth. Keep rubbing her back. But she never spits up what’s in her lungs and Karen has to use the suction pump. Then she’s handed back to us and we hold her. Her head is elongated from the birth. She sucks on her hand with a far away, mad look in her eyes. 

Oh, a baby. “Happy birthday,” Bianca says. 

We call her C.