Nine Months Read online

  “If the nurse can give me a shot of Demoral, I’ll be fine. Really. I prefer Demoral. I like drugs that mess with my head better than the ones that just numb you.”

  “Would you get a tooth pulled without the numbing pain reliever?”

  “No. But I’m not getting a tooth pulled. I’m having a baby.” And if I were getting my tooth pulled, thinks Sonia, I’d ask for the gas, too. It’s like doing whippets.

  “But getting a tooth pulled isn’t nearly as painful as giving birth. And it doesn’t make sense that you’d get numbing pain reliever for pulling a tooth but not for having a baby. There’s no reason to feel all that pain.”

  “I’m one of those weird people who kind of gets off on pain, OK?”

  “You really should have someone here with you. A sister or your mother, if you’re not going to call your husband. We can’t really let you leave unless you have someone here to take you home.”

  “Well, I just got here so let’s not think about me leaving yet. I just got here.”

  Dr. Lumiere frowns at her. Sonia feels high. The endorphins, in reaction to the contractions, must have just kicked in. She gets a rush to her head. She says, “You’re beautiful when you frown.”

  “Are you on any medication? Lithium? Prozac?”

  “No,” she says.

  “No high blood pressure, no diabetes …”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. I’m healthy.”

  “When was your last prenatal checkup?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Were you having weekly checkups?”

  “It was a while ago, my last checkup. It was a couple months ago.”

  Dr. Lumiere frowns again. “Well, everything looks fine.”

  THE ROOM IS SMALLER than the one she had both her boys in. Both of her boys were delivered in the same room at the same beautiful maternity ward in Manhattan. But although the room is small, it has a nice view and it’s clean. Sonia is happy. The nurse comes and checks her contractions again. They’ve slowed down, they’re now five minutes apart, but they’re getting deeper. She can really feel them, they pull at her, and she stops thinking about other things—about her boys, about her husband, about Phil Rush, the man, her old professor, she’s just come from visting—and just feels the pain.

  The nurse says, “Your contractions have slowed down. Probably because you’re more relaxed now. You’ve been lying down for a while. It’s OK. Don’t worry. This baby’s coming today.”

  Today? Today? God, she’s going to have a baby, she’s going to give birth, a fucking baby is going to come out of her, a person. Another goddamn person. She shudders. The nice nurse may know the baby is coming, and may tell this to Sonia, but Sonia doesn’t believe it, exactly. She is suddenly struck with the enormity of it all. The panic it causes her to think of it! So she just stops thinking about it. That pain that she’s feeling? She’d rather be in her pain, right now—live for the moment!—than think about what’s ahead.

  Sonia gets up from her bed. She puts on a robe from a bag of mall clothing she’s acquired on this trip. A huge, gray maternity robe. She shoves her feet into the hospital slippers, flimsy, paper things, and decides to walk around the building a bit, to fend off her thoughts. In the hallway, at the nurse’s station, she asks Beatrice if they sell good slippers, fluffy slippers, at the gift shop.

  “I’m not sure. You could take a look, though.”

  Sonia walks toward the elevator. A contraction comes and she stops for a moment, puts her hand on her belly. Her stomach gets hard as a rock, it’s like a smooth, rounded stone, and Sonia stands there and feels it. It hurts nicely, purposefully, rightly. And then it’s gone. And she’s in the elevator.

  The gift shop isn’t so bad. Really. Some T-shirts, some cheap jewelry. Coffee mugs. No slippers though. Sonia thinks of talking to the woman behind the desk about how slippers would be a good thing to carry in the hospital seeing as how the slippers the hospital gives you aren’t very nice. They barely stay on your feet. But as she smilingly walks toward the saleswoman the woman glares at her and Sonia decides against giving her any advice. She decides against striking up a conversation with this woman. This woman doesn’t want to talk to her.

  And who does, really? Is that why she keeps having kids, so someone will want to talk to her? Someone had said to her once, people have kids so they don’t have to deal with making friends. You have kids and they have to be your friends, or, at the very least, your company, your human interaction, as they live with you and off of you for years and years. God, how she misses her boys. And Dick. Yes, and Dick.

  BACK ON THE MATERNITY ward, Beatrice comes and checks her out. The nurse’s skin is a very dark brown and there is something creamy about her skin, something smooth and perfect. Sonia can tell she’s young. In her twenties. She gives Sonia her attention. She doesn’t seem hurried or angry or burned out. This is good luck, thinks Sonia, this means that everything is going to be OK. This nice, energetic nurse is a premonition, is grace from God. Everything is going to be OK! My boys, my marriage. This creature inside me. Sonia could have just as easily gotten a bitter, nasty, exhausted woman who hates her job. But no, Sonia was given this woman, whose nametag says Beatrice, this young, fresh-faced beautiful woman smiling at her this very moment. Whose hands are gentle and cool and very soft and smell lightly of Jergen’s lotion. Beatrice times her contractions and says, “Let’s get the doctor in here again. Your contractions are longer now.”

  Dr. Lumiere comes in, with Beatrice behind her. Sonia is standing at the window right now, looking down to the streets ten floors below. The pain, when it comes, and now it is always coming, makes her face go slack, her mouth open. A bit of drool drops to the floor. Walking around, walking down to the gift shop, must have helped things along. “Come lie down for a minute, so we can check you again.”

  Sonia obeys. Dr. Lumiere puts her fist inside Sonia again and concentrates.

  “Do you have any kids, Dr. Lumiere?”

  “Yes, one boy. He’s eleven now. It’s a lot of work.” She smiles, but it’s not Beatrice’s smile. “I was much older than you when I had him. I’d been a doctor for so long. It was a big change. I love him to pieces, but it’s a lot of work. It is. We have full-time help. Although he’s getting kind of old for that.”

  “I wish I were a doctor. Or something. I wish I weren’t home as much as I am. I think I’d be happier.”

  “You’ve gone another centimeter. Things are moving. I could really get things going by stripping your membranes.”

  The thought of getting her membranes stripped, of getting her water broken, hurts. Her contractions hurt, but once the water’s gone, the pain hits directly on the pelvic bone, hard. Everything moves so fast then. It’ll all be over. “No, no, please don’t.” There’s fear in her voice. “It’ll hurt so much.”

  “Why don’t you let me give you an epidural? There’s still time.”

  “Just let it go naturally, if possible.” Sonia hears fear in her voice. Pleading. She doesn’t want a needle in her spine, even if it means she won’t feel a thing. She doesn’t want her water broken either, which is really silly, she knows, because it’s going to break any minute now anyway. She wants to be left alone, is what she wants.

  “Well, you’re going to have this baby soon enough anyway,” the doctor says impatiently.

  “I need to be alone for a minute.” Sonia asks quietly and they leave her and she goes to the window again. Oh, the pain. The contractions bear down on her now, the doctor’s fist having changed things again, having loosened things up down there, and her knees are weak with pain. Her mouth opens. Oh, Jesus, what is happening? Can this really be happening? And again, a big one, and Sonia falls to her knees now, holding on to the window sill. It’s going to happen. They’re right. And she’s alone, in fucking Philadelphia. But that’s OK. It’s how it should be. She doesn’t want him here anyway and she certainly doesn’t want her boys here. One friend of hers, Marisa, had her five-year-old daughter watc
h when she gave birth to her second child. She wanted to share the experience with her daughter. Sonia found that idea very confusing. Who would want to share this with a little girl? Or a little boy? Or with anyone, for that matter? Here, in a strange town, with complete strangers, this is the way Sonia always wanted to give birth. Yes, yes, it is a part of life. But it’s not a pretty part of life. She doesn’t take a shit in front of her kids or husband, either. And giving birth equals taking a shit, and then some. And then a lot more. And the pain, the transforming pain—who would want to show a little girl her own mother, mentally insane with pain? The blood, the pain, the shit. No, children may not be as innocent as the world wants them to be, but this, but birth, is for grown ups.

  The first moan escapes. It’s a quiet one. She leans her head down on her belly, down between her knees. She’s squatting now and for some reason, this feels good for a moment. Squatting in a hospital room by herself, the sun barely visible through the window, the gray streets and sky of Philadelphia in February. And yet, it’s just this moment that she needs, a clear moment, a moment where the vise grip of her own body lets go, so she can think for a minute, everything is OK, everything is OK. I’m going to be OK. And then another contraction.

  Sonia falls forward. She’s on her hands and knees now and she moans louder. She moans through the contraction. She gets up then, when it’s subsiding, not really over, but almost, and she throws herself on the hospital bed. She curls up in a fetal position for a moment. Then, it’s that time when she needs to be totally naked. She’s hot. Her body is like an oven. So the maternity robe lands on the ground. Her body is her enemy now. It’s hot, it’s huge, it’s doing weird things to itself. It’s not recognizable and it fucking hurts like hell. Now, now is when Sonia knows that there is a God and he doesn’t love her. He doesn’t love her because she, after all, is not a good person. Not a good mother, not a good wife, not a good daughter and not a good sister. And that is why the pain feels so right, because she deserves this pain. She deserves this message from God. And she feels blessed. She feels in communion with God, she feels he is letting her suffer, letting her burn in the hell that is her body, her burning body, and it all makes sense. Karma. What goes around, comes around. She deserves this pain. It is the pain she has caused to others, coming back to say hello.

  And then another quiet moment. Sonia feels weak, spent, shaken. Yet, she can see clearly. She runs to the little bathroom in her room and shit pours out of her, as if she’s had an enema, which she had the first time around, and not the second, because, like now, it just all came out of her. Her head is in her hands, her elbows on her knees, and her head feels cold and clammy. She goes and gets the robe off the floor and wraps it around her for a second. Beatrice comes in. “How’re you doing?” The smile. The real smile, a genuine kindness expressed for a total stranger. The knowing smile that says, you’re going to have a baby.

  “I don’t know how you do this.” Sonia voice sounds strange, not deep yet, but almost vibrato. “How can you watch this?”

  “I’m not doing anything, you’re the one doing the work here.”

  “But how can you stand it?” Tears stream down her face and she moans and stoops over the bed, moving back and forth as another contraction bears down on her. “Damn. Damn it hurts.”

  “I can see if it’s not too late for an epidural.”

  “No, no I deserve this. I deserve it all.”

  “What’s that?” Now Beatrice is on her, rubbing her back and arms, wiping her brow. “You don’t deserve anything. Don’t torture yourself. You’re having a baby.”

  “I don’t know if I want this baby. I really don’t,” says Sonia and then a trickling down her leg. Her water broke, all on its own. Slowly, it’s coming down her legs. No big gush. No fountain of water.

  “Oh, look. Your water’s broken. And it’s clear. That’s good. But I better get Dr. Lumiere.”

  Dr. Lumiere arrives and Sonia sees her for the bitch she is. She’s pissed that Sonia isn’t on the bed with an epidural in her spine. She’s pissed that Sonia is being difficult in general, and perhaps, understandably, she doesn’t want to deliver this baby, this baby whose father isn’t here, whose mother doesn’t live here. She seems, in fact, like a lot of professional women in their fifties—pissed off and ready to retire. Yes, maybe it’s not just Sonia’s baby that’s the problem, but delivering babies in general.

  Sonia asks, “How long did you say you’ve been doing this?” as the doctor listens to the baby’s heartbeat.

  “A long time.” And the smile again, the curt, professional smile. “Well, things are moving along. How are you feeling?”

  “I need some water. I just shit my brains out. I don’t feel so great.”

  “The baby’s heartbeat is fine. It’s doing fine.”

  Another contraction bears down on Sonia and she rolls over on the bed, away from the other two women and tries to stifle a scream. She doesn’t stifle it. She screams. The doctor walks out and Beatrice comes up to Sonia.

  “Oh, you’re a screamer, huh? That’s all right. Just scream if you need to, if it makes you feel better.” Beatrice says this as she rubs Sonia’s spine, the spine that faces her now.

  “Yeah, yeah I’m a screamer,” Sonia says, her voice changing now, really changing, deep and breathless. “Oh God. Help me God. Oh God.” And then she stands up, her eyes wild with fear. “It hurts now. It hurts so badly. I don’t want to push this baby out. I don’t want to do it. I’M SCARED. I’M SCARED OF THE PAIN. I’M SCARED THE BABY WON’T BE OK. I’M SCARED OF MEETING THIS BABY.” And then another one hits her and she falls on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, back and forth.

  Beatrice crouches next to her, the constant rubbing of her smooth, soft hands. The creamy skin and sane touch on Sonia’s sweating, crazed body. “Why are you scared? What are scared about? This baby’s going to be fine. All the tests came back fine, right? That’s what’s on the chart, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re doing a great job. You’re almost done. You’re almost done.”

  Sonia’s mind hits another clear spot. Suddenly, it sees outside herself. The little bathroom. The table with medical equipment. She looks behind her. There’s the window. And then, in her clearness, she feels bile rise and she rushes for the little bathroom, not quite making it to the toilet, and vomits on the floor, on the clean white tiles of the bathroom floor. There goes her steak and her baked potato. She sees it and it confuses her, as it all seems so long ago. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s alright, don’t worry. I’ll clean it up,” says Beatrice and she goes out to get a bucket and rags and Sonia is ashamed and grateful and doesn’t want Beatrice to leave her. “Don’t leave me!” She cries as Beatrice heads out the door. “Don’t leave me! I need you!”

  And Beatrice says, “I’ll be right back. Don’t worry, I’ll be right back,” and her voice is calm and creamy like her skin, comforting Sonia, and Sonia loves this woman with a power beyond her. She loves Beatrice and sees the glow now, the halo around this nurse, and she feels a moment of euphoria. She’s been blessed! Beatrice is the angel sent from above to shepherd her through this time! Sonia lays herself down on the bed, on her side, and curls up, again, in a fetal position. She pants, but everything is clear now. She’s having a baby. She’s going to push out a baby. And she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

  Later, when the pushing starts, the top half of Sonia will try and run away from the lower half. With one final burst of energy, she’ll roll over on her hands and knees, from where she was on her back getting ready to push the baby out, and she will try and crawl away from herself. Something she’s been trying to do her whole life, really. But it doesn’t work. Gravity, reality, her body and soul, throws her back on her back, knees splayed, heaving stomach before bulging eyes, and like a volcano splitting the earth’s skin, her daughter comes out.

  June—eight months earlier

  Sonia doesn’t want another baby. She
doesn’t want another abortion, either. She’s had two babies and one abortion already. In the darkness of her bedroom bathroom—she’s in too much of a hurry to turn the light on—at the crack of dawn, she struggles to open the plastic wrapper. Her knees tightly together, wiggling her butt around so she doesn’t pee in her underpants (God, she has to pee so badly, the feeling is abnormally intense, as if she just drank a case of beer, a pretty sure sign she’s pregnant), and then—there, she’s got it—she sits and releases a stream of piss onto the white stick. She manages to urinate all over her hand as well as she sits awkwardly scrunched over the toilet. She makes a face in disgust and holds her peed-on hand stiffly. Pee on her hand is not a new thing, as the mother of two small children. Pee, poop, spit-up, saliva-ridden cookie bits. This is her life. Tom is four. Michael is two. He’s still in diapers! He just started talking well, really well, actually, and she’s so relieved to be done with that stage where all they can do is cry to express themselves. Soon the diapers will be gone, too, as long as she doesn’t fuck it up by getting too intense about toilet training, something she learned the hard way from Tom. Her children are little, yes, but she has no babies! And she’s very happy about that. Smug, even. When she’s in the playground and sees another mother with an infant at the breast or in her arms, she thinks, ha, I’m over that. I’m done with all that. Now that both her kids sleep through the night, sit at a table (more or less) and stick their own food into their own mouths, life is much, much better. Now that she isn’t so exhausted anymore, now that she and Dick go to the movies once a week, now that they like each other better than they have since Tom was first born four long, wrinkle-inducing years ago, now that they are fucking again, now, now it’s all going to go away?

  This hard-earned, long-awaited breather. Her children are too small to cause real trouble, being past the crying, run-into-traffic, eat-crap-off the-floor, constantly teething stage. The green, tree-lined streets of Brooklyn produce an air that smells sweeter than ever, as she can now bring a magazine to the playgrounds and relax, really relax, while her two boys play nicely on the low, super safely designed, modern jungle gyms. Her legs look good again, the bulging pregnancy veins having mostly receded. She’s been feeling hopeful. She isn’t drowning in laundry. And now it’s all going away? Now this?