I Peed Myself?

Had my cute red A-line dress on, with the snap buttons that run the length of it down the front. We had come from Carr’s bridal shower, where my present was the best ever! Very clever. I made a bikini for her and a jockstrap for Chip out of real coconuts and tiger print polyester. I packaged it in a tower of boxes that decreased in size and wrapped in enlarged xeroxed pages of a torrid Harlequin romance. Her mother’s laughing was the confirmation I needed that my efforts were worth it. 

I haven’t wet my pants from excitement since childhood.

Go Speed Racer!

The doctor tells me “Get to the ER! NOT Maternity, the ER!” We race up 400. Fuck the toll booth, as I scrunch the towels between my legs so as not to ruin the car’s leather seats.

Arizona Will Have to Wait

The ER docs advise me to terminate. I’ve lost all my amniotic fluid, a baby’s essential need.

It’s a Saturday but Dr. Gumer has brought in both his kids to visit me in the ER. They were about to start a family vacation to see the Grand Canyon. He gives money to his kids to hit the vending machines. He knows how much I’ve wanted Dylan and how hard I’ve worked to get Dylan. He tells me they will move me to high-risk maternity, I will be on my back. I can watch TV, read, think of it as a mini vacation. Yet once I’m there, I CAN’T watch TV, I CAN’T READ, I CAN’T EAT, I CAN’T VACAY.

Criss Cross  Applesauce

My comatose brain is capable of crappy embroidery, with kitschy themes of balloons and puppies. I make little x’s with needle and thread. I lose the needle among the bedding and can’t reach to retrieve it. Buzz for the nurses, who have all seen my vajayjay, cos no underwear allowed in this joint. No showers allowed, no standing allowed, no walking allowed, I’m stuck in maternity prison.

ATTICA! ATTICA!

My Little PEANUT!

I sit on the bedside commode, General Hospital, Luke and Laura are still around? No poop for moi today.

Back on the bed. Bloated feeling. Discomfort. Yep, genitals still exposed for the whole wide world to see, pubes swaying in the AC breeze.

Pain. Fentanyl is the bomb! But only for 20 minutes? What the hell? Pain again.

The nurse takes a peak. Oh, he’s crowning. I see his head. I shout, “He is breach!” 

A team of people move my bed but I’m stuck in the doorway because of all the crappy embroidery stuff hanging from my bed rails. We’re on the move. Elevators taking too long, no time, take her down the hall, pushed into a room that has been used for storage. Rocking chairs piled high against 2 walls. Black and white Andy Griffith and Opie and Aunt Bea are on the TV where one of the nurses had been resting.

Dr. Gumer flies into the room in his scrubs like a superhero. I don’t even push. Dylan falls out, all 2 pounds 7 ounces of him.

An overwhelming sense of joy and euphoria envelops me. 

Until I see my husband faint in the doorway when he spies Dylan in the plastic basket as they whisk him away to the NICU.