Happy Birthday, Chicken Big

My baby is 23 today. That is really, like, all grown up.  I remember the day she as born, me in that crazy birthing suite with my sister,  my close friend, and not one, but two doulas. I was trying to have natural child birth but also trying to have her father present. He had already taken a job in Texas, and we lived in Arizona, so the doctor decided to induce me right on my due date. 

It was an interesting time. The night before a major tornado had torn through Jasper, Texas, a town not far from where we would eventually be moving to, and a whole neighborhood had disappeared. I had been fired 9 months before when I’d stupidly told my boss that I was pregnant. I sued and won.

      Anyway, the doctor starting the induction at noon, and since I have crazy high pain tolerance, it took awhile for me to feel anything. It was close to 4 in the afternoon before the labor got going well. I got right up to the end and I started calling everyone motherfuckers. I wanted some drugs. My husband said I couldn’t have any, reminding me the I ‘d said I wanted to have natural childbirth. I grabbed him by the collar and practically lifted him off the floor. I screamed, “Get me some drugs!” He must have felt the seriousness of my demand because he ran from the room and came back with the nurse-midwife. They checked me out and said that it was too late for drugs, and I remember calling more people motherfuckers, finally asking my daughter’s godmother-to-be, my sisters, and even the Doulas to get the fuck out of the room.

      The doctor finally came and told me to push. I didn’t know how as I had not attended the last childbirthing class; that was the class where they also told you about epidurals, and I had no intention (at the time), of letting anyone stick a needle in my spine, so I didn’t attend. The internet was in its infancy but I read every horror story I could find about the procedure and was determined not to have one.

     My doc told me that pushing was like shitting, and with that, Sydney Alia came into the world at the fourth push. I shot her out with such force that the doctor had to practically catch her like a football. They took her across the birthing suite to clean her up and I almost panicked since she was not crying. In the movies, babies always cry. I remember thinking that something must be  wrong, so to appease me, the doctor spanked her on her bum, even though it was against the policies of her practice; no episiotomy unless absolutely needed, no shaving of the mother’s vagina, and no spanking the butt of a newborn. My daughter’s cries sounded like a cat with one eye open. 

     I think I stayed  in the hospital for 24 hours, but I remember not knowing what to do with this mewing creature that wouldn’t  stop moving her legs. In the first days, she slept in a bassinet near my bed, since, like with the natural childbirth, I intended to breast feed her forever and keep her in cloth diapers. I’d purchased fancy European diaper covers and they made this sound whenever she moved and she moved a lot, so I was going to get no sleep.  I remember feeling betrayed for a few days; no one had told me that you bled for a month after childbirth. I had only been told that it was wonderful and everything was sunny. It was not. At least not for about three months.

     I got into the groove of motherhood quickly., I had a doll that ate and needed frequent diaper changes. I bought every cute baby outfit I could find and changed her clothes at least three times a day. She was always looking cute, down to the baby shoes. During one of these changes, she laughed. My grandmother would say it was gas, but my girl laughed and I laughed back. Motherhood finally made sense to me then.

     Now, it’s 23 years later. She’s graduated from college and has a tech job that she starts in about a month. I can honestly say that she gave me the greatest gift when she came into the world. There is nothing that grows you up like  having to fend for another human being. 

Happy Birthday, Chicken Big.