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The humorous version of my daughter’s birth storyby Agnes Eva Savich
At 38 weeks preggo, I went with my husband Scott to see comedian Ralphie May perform. I laughed for two hours straight, bounce-bounce-bouncing baby's head down onto my cervix, until I started to feel mild contractions. On my way out I shook Ralphie’s hand and joked, “That was so hilarious, I think you actually made me go into labor.”
When I went to bed that night, a definite rhythm had emerged: lower whale-body onto bed, heave belly over body pillow, close eyes, spring awake 30 minutes later, hoist self to bathroom, peeeeeeeeee, waddle back to bed, lower whale-body…
By noon the next day I called my midwife Sandra, all ready to head down to the birth center. To my surprise, I was told to drink some beer, take a Benadryl and lie down, for I was surely in false labor. I dutifully obeyed this bewildering combination of orders, and indeed slept a couple hours.
All night my contractions picked up intensity. My poor husband got the punching bag end of my pain, until I was encouraged to squeeze his shoulder instead. Somehow I made it to morning and called Sandra again.
It’s just prodromal labor,” she said, “ignore it and go about your day as usual.”
I hung up thinking, “Dromedaries? What does my labor have to do with camels? And ignore this pain, is she kidding?”
Now it was Scott’s football worshipping Sunday, so I glommed onto the couch with him. My contractions were synced up with the tackles. The crash of the football players' bodies into each other helped me deal with the pain. Slam! Oh you think THAT hurt, buddy, at least the football isn’t trying to come out of your butt!
Sandra finally conceded to let me come to the birth center at 9pm so she could check me and “probably send me back home.” It’s a testament to my insanity that I changed the time to 9:15pm, so I could finish watching Desperate Housewives.
Upon arrival, I was 4cm dilated. “Touchdown!,” I felt like yelling. Scott returned home, because of course we hadn’t yet installed the car seat, or brought my ridiculously overpacked suitcase from which I only used two candles and choked down one Fruit Leather. Did I mention he took the time to shave and chat online with some buddies before returning? Ok, it was only to tell them I’m in labor but he was gone for, like, hours. (Later he told me, “Do you know how convoluted those car seat instructions are!!??”)
Upon returning, he filmed some of the labor, so I could hear my lovely whale mating calls for posterity: “NGuuuuuuuuuuuh. NNNNgggguuuuuuuhhhhhh.” I remember at one point feeling like a feral animal, gasping out, “Hair. Off. Face,” then clawing Scott’s fumbled attempts with the rubber band into my own hands after the contraction subsided.
The light at the end of the tunnel was the moment my daughter’s head popped out. Like a little alien peering in from a rift in time-space, she fully opened her eyes and just hung out there, half born, surveying everyone poised for her birth. Then the final contraction came, a sensation I completely blocked from memory, because the next thing I knew was her floppy little smooth body being handed up to me. I just started gushing “I love you” to her, Scott, Sandra, the assistant. Only the remaining task of delivering the placenta kept me from declaring my love to the inanimate objects in the room. Labor had begun with laughter, and ended with total joy.
