The Beauty of Childbirth

            At about one in the morning, December 4th, 1993, I was born. I was kicked out of my room in my mother’s stomach and forced into the hands of one of the doctors in the Sacred Heart hospital in Spokane, Washington. I’m grateful they didn’t drop me.

It’s a beautiful thing, childbirth. At least, that’s what I’ve been told since the day I was evicted. I’m not sure if baby-me would agree, seeing as the womb is supposedly warm, and I didn’t have to do any homework in there (I mean, how could I? The paper would get all wet and I’m not even sure how I’d get a notebook into my hands. There’s not really that much space). But, alas, not many really bothered to see it from my perspective, and continued to lament to me about how beautiful having a child was.

The other girls got this talk, too, at a young age, seeing as they frequently mentioned what their babies would look like, and always liked to play house whenever they could. I didn’t like hanging out with them. For one, not having a crush was an oddity, and two, I’d much rather rough-house with the boys. They didn’t bother with any of that house chatter. They just rammed their shoulder into you as you ran around playing tag. I seem to remember nearly being tackled a few times. Nearly. I wasn’t easy to catch, and my sheer desire to win generally pushed me past my limits and let me slip away from pursuing taggers. You could say I was playing hard to get.

Eventually, however, I hit fourth grade, which is apparently the time where boys and girls had to be separated because it was inappropriate for them to hang around each other. We would be seen as a couple. Logically, we were a couple. A couple of kids.

Nevertheless, I was banned from having Matthew, my best friend, attend my birthday sleepover. From then on, I was pushed to hang out with other girls, to chat with them, to play house. I tried to join them in conversations on the playground, and sat in the cedar shavings in shorts, and watched the boys play on the local swing set.

It was torture.

I heard all about their crushes and what their babies would look like. I learned about how they would propose, how they’d squeal, and how their hearts fluttered whenever their crush looked their direction. I continued to watch the boys. A few of them jumped off the swings as it reached its highest arc and landed precariously close to the wooden beam that kept the shavings in the grounds of the playground—yes, I’m well aware that sentence sounds funny.

One of the girls caught my gaze, smiled, and looked to me.

“Who’s your crush?”

With a disgruntled sigh, I turned my attention to the girl. She grinned from ear to ear, as if she had caught me in some sort of lie. As if I was supposed to blush. And while prone to blushing at the most inappropriate moments, I stared at her blank-faced, perplexed and a little irritated.

“I don’t have a crush.”

The girls burst into laughter after a moment of pause. I frowned. They grew quiet.

“Everyone has a crush!” This child insisted. “You have to like someone!”

“I like a lot of people,” I replied.

“Like-like someone, Lauren!” She said my name as if I was being ridiculous. I hated it. I hated how she spat it out as if I was some sort of fool. My frown grew deeper.

Oh, young me. If only you knew you’d get that for the rest of your life.

I’ve never liked holding babies. It’s one of those things where I just don’t enjoy caring for a smaller human. It’s not mine. It’s squirming and looking at me like I’m going to eat it. I don’t particularly like being considered a cannibal, so I tend to refuse whenever someone—namely family members—offer. (My family has a lot of babies, some of which aren’t actually newly-born humans, but that’s a story for another time.) Of course, the reason they offered so much, and with such unrelenting force, was because they hoped my stance towards miniature beings would eventually soften. I mean, I did enjoy holding kittens and puppies, so it wasn’t a sentiment I held against all babies. Just the human ones. Specifically the human ones.

My family was well-aware.

“You have to get used to holding a baby for when you have your own!” They exclaimed, in unison, like some sort of hive-mind. I smiled at them. I backed away.

In my defense, I enjoyed children from a distance. I liked to play with them and I liked to hear them laugh. They’re fine when they’re not mine. They’re fine when I don’t have to look after them.

Please stop offering me your child.

When I was younger, I used to read books about a pioneer woman who sailed around the world. She was rather cool, the kind of chick that gave no fucks about what others thought about her—and one that was in constant danger of being raped. For a while, I could handle this, and kept reading until the words gave birth to something inside me. That’s when the nightmares came.

Night after night, a dream would come and rumble inside my guts, ask where my child was. Night after night, it would push a squirming human out of my insides.

I stopped reading the books and, for a while, my nights were peaceful. This serenity didn’t last. Without any obvious trigger, they’ve returned. I wake up in a sweat and curl into myself, feeling tears burn at the corners of my eyes. Sometimes I’ll feel my stomach lurch and I worry I might throw up, spew the nameless child I have growing in my gut upon the floor. Maybe it’ll squirm, its umbilical cord filling my throat, and I’ll have to bite it with my own two teeth and swallow to get it back inside me. Maybe the child will cry and beg to be fed as it wiggles its body in the fluids I spat up. Do you think I’d also deliver the placenta through my mouth? Hack that up upon my floor? I think I’d pick up the child eventually. Maybe I’d give it a name, or maybe I wouldn’t. I’d probably drive myself to the local hospital and claim the child was abandoned nearby, even as I drooled birthing fluids from my mouth. They’d take the child, of course, and I’d quickly leave before they received any of my information. I’d find somewhere to curl up and cry over myself.

Or maybe I wouldn’t.

Maybe I’d just die spitting out a child. Maybe it’d clog up my airways and we’d both lie there, flailing, unable to call for help as we suffocated on each other. I don’t know. It’s not something I like to think about, but I manage to think about it a lot. I sit in bed and curl my fingers around my hair.

Yes.

Childbirth truly is a gift.