Reflections - cover2

Rocks in my Laundry Basket - Birthing the Babies
It comes with a great rush of power and pain. That hard knot of muscle stretches out and down with unbelievable force. I can sense the baby’s
frantic struggle to escape from me. Suddenly I feel a tremendous love and kinship for the life within me – we are a team; we will get through this
and everything that’s to come in life together. The eternal bond is forged.
My hands grasp the bars at my side; my legs and hips press down. My strength surprises me. At last mind and body, separated by the surrealism
of preceding events, come together again. The feeling of being powerless to control my body gives way to the realization that this is a job which I
must help my body to do by concentrating all my mental effort on one thing only. I am in control again. What a relief!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The pain subsides temporarily, and I gasp for air. Air! How precious it is! Damn those cigarettes. I am ready now for the next onslaught. Fear
has disappeared – this is a job to be done quickly and efficiently, an obstacle to overcome with strength and determination. I feel the uterus
gathering strength again. I prepare myself. Dr. Conner’s voice gives explicit instructions. I am thankful for the hundreds of births he has attended
for the life and death he has seen, for his jokes between pains, for his merry eyes behind the mask. As the baby makes another head-long rush
towards light and air and the freedom of a perilous future, I surprise myself by saying, “Damn Adam and Eve!” I hear everyone laughing as the
pain descends.
Not cold now; nothing but hot sweat and work and pain. It surprises me that I haven’t burst out of all this rigging with my ferocious pushing and
shoving. The uterus stops resting between pains and becomes one continuous contraction. I lose my concentration for a second when I wonder
vaguely, “Where the hell is Paul? How could a cow with mastitis be more important than this?” I feel a small twinge of resentment towards both
the cow and him. I am rewarded by Dr. Connor yelling, “Keep your butt down on the table!”
One more desperate push – to show everyone I am tending to business – and I feel the head “pop” like a cork from my body, next the shoulders
move through the canal easily, and then the rest of the body follows with a sudden, great rush of fluids, as if someone had up-ended a bucket of
water.
Excitement is palpable in the room. Someone shouts, “It’s a boy!” And then the breathless hush before the first cry. A large, cumulative sigh
issues forth like a spring breeze from the witnesses of this miracle – new life protesting! My question – eternal, maternal first question, “Is
everything all right?” – is answered with, “He seems to have all his equipment in the right place!” I was awash with relief, love, and delight. I had
produced an heir, a prince, a new bearer of the family honor into future generations. In the terms of past generations, I had done my duty!
…
Early that same morning, Paul had gone to pull a calf – the month of May being calving season for all species, humans included. Sylvia, the woman
who had helped us move two days before and was going to help out for a few days, arrived about 8:30. I arose with a strangely uneasy feeling. The
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