The Pagan Heart
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June 2005 Issue
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This is Birth
By Catherine M.
I briefly saw my daughter, my first born. Euphoria filled me as I stared at that tiny red body - so perfect even to my unfocused eyes - and I said, "She looks like a Briannah Caelin, don't you think?" to my husband. He nodded, his face blurring with the movement, and followed the nurse as they took her aside to check her toes and weigh her and all those other things. I returned to the work before me, my second child. As I pushed, I heard the doctors talking. I didn't hear what they said, but I caught the tension in Cameron's voice as he spoke. My doctor took my hand and leant close. With all my attention on my child I hardly heard her at first. Then she said, "We have to do a C-Section." Movement. Lots of movement as the staff hurried about me. A blue sheet wafted gently down over my face while I lay there, my hand clenched tight about Cameron's, and I thought but I'm not dead yet. It seemed very surreal. They pinned it up to make a wall between us and them. I felt someone wrap constraints about my wrist, strapping my arms out to the side. The bearded face of my anesthesiologist smiled upsidedown at me. "I'm giving you more pain relief." As he spoke, my doctor traced a searing line of fire across my belly. Shocked, I cried out, "I can feel that. I can feel the knife. It hurts." But she kept going and my world shifted. Pain threw me down a long dark hole and as I clambered out of it I cried. Cameron, his face tight and pale, clutched my hands and told me everything would be okay. His eyes shrank into tiny drops of murky fear. I remember asking for a bucket, a bowl - something so I could throw up. And then my child was born. My second daughter. Deprived of air, dragged into the world, she vanished before I could see her. Instead I lay there as they cleaned me up feeling the drugs finally wash through me and take away the pain. Cameron saw her. He followed them about the room and then came back to reclaim my hand and smile at me. Only a small smile, but it told me everything was okay. "I think she looked like an Erin Portia." "Really?" He nodded and stroked my arm, before picking up my glasses and giving them to me. "She's beautiful too." It was hours later, as I lay in my bed, that a nurse brought our children to us. I sat there, holding them both - my perfect little girls - and I felt perfect. Now, over three years later, I love every mark - the stretch marks and scars - that resulted from those eight long months and that one day. I love my stomach in all its richness, my breasts that fed my children, my hands and arms that hold them. My body is strong and capable. It has become a world of love, shelter and encouragement. In one way I am complete. |
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