Birthing Americana - Emily An Boie

It hurt her to think that the first memory her baby would have of this world is screaming. But why should this bother her? Lots of women scream when they give birth. It hurts. It’s normal, isn’t it? For a fleeting moment, in between short contractions and the urges to push, she wished that she had read more books on the effort of labor. Would it have helped? Probably not. Most books written with topics on maternity were written for women giving birth, and she was only 13 years old and barely 95 pounds before the pregnancy, long before this moment of birth. The doctor told her to push once more; the baby was almost out. She felt as if she had been ripped open from thigh to thigh up to her chest cavity, so sure, what was one more push. As she did, she let her sweat-soaked head and matted hair rest on the paper-thin pillow of the bed. For a brief moment, her eyes locked on a bulbous rat licking up fluids that had leaked out of a saline bag. She almost wanted to laugh, remembering that she had read in a book that saline was used for hydration intravenously in hospitals. Was the rat extra hydrated now? And then the baby was out, and the screaming stopped, and the nurse was wrapping the little thing, born entirely premature, in a stained little hospital towel. She half-smiled, looking at the little mess of flesh in the nurse’s arms. She let her eyes close, relieved that it was over. She chose to not get the epidural since her health insurance did not cover it. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyways, her OBGYN had said. She had untreated scoliosis, and it would be almost impossible to place it right without an expert. But none of that mattered because her baby was beautiful, and she was done. 

Eyes closed, she let the doctor begin closing her up. She imagined the entirety of her torso sewed up the middle, with little bows at the end of each stitch. She could feel the dopamine rushing to her brain, relieving the pain of childbirth. How nice it would be to have bows on her body, she thought… 

BAM! 

And her eyes sprung open. 

“SHIT,” the nurse screamed, rushing to the ground while covering her mouth, realizing her double mistake. 

“Shit…” the girl repeated quietly, looking down at the floor. 

The nurse had dropped the little baby right on its little head.