Men take a lot of credit for their physical accomplishments, and most women play along—knowing the fine balance in which our fragile egos hang. They watch with feigned enthusiasm as we lunge for footballs, wrench open mayonnaise jars, and dance up flights of stairs with all the heavy luggage. Yet our greatest physical accomplishments and feats of endurance pale in comparison to the heroic ordeal that women have been facing since the beginning of time. Giving birth.
I was a bit naive about the process until my son Matthew was born. Susie would be in labor for a few hours, I was told, so I packed our bags accordingly: books and magazines, playing cards, a selection of cassette tapes. You know, things to pass the time.
Pass the time—ha! Time stood still during those agonizing hours. I scarcely remembered what day it was. Picking music wasn’t foremost on my mind.
We did manage to play a little gin rummy in the early stages, while we were still at home. The contractions had begun the previous evening (Susie swears it was the hot-‘n-spicy pizza that kicked them off) and continued intermittently throughout the night. By the afternoon of the next day they were coming regularly, about 10 minutes apart. We carefully clocked the onset and duration of each uterine spasm right along side our gin rummy scores. As the contractions mounted in frequency and intensity, as Susie became unable to easily breathe (let alone discard), it became clear that the Big Moment had arrived. The score was 440 to 16. No sense drawing out the card tournament any longer.
Me? I was calm and collected. I didn’t speed to the hospital or leave anything at home. I casually escorted my trembling wife into the emergency room. The baby ought to be here in a couple of hours, I thought. I’ll hold her hand, she’ll push him out, and that will be that.
It was about eight in the evening when we checked into the hospital. The contractions were already getting unbearable for Susie. I likened it to the end of a 10-mile run, when the flag goes up and you know you are heading into the last lap. Her energy must be running out, I remember thinking. Thank God it’s almost over.
Almost over? A sleepless night and 24 hours of contractions were just the beginning. Little Matthew didn’t draw his first breath until 5:00 the following morning, nine hours after we checked into the hospital. Those hours were like none I have ever experienced, or even imagined. They were exhausting. They were frightening. And, in the end, they were the most heart-rending moments of my life. Moments that forever changed my perspective about this strong, giving woman I married.
As the hours passed the labor grew more laborious. My suitcase of music and games and sandwiches sat forgotten in the corner. We huddled together in a private world that extended just a few inches beyond our faces, heeding Julie Andrews’ sage advice to remember our favorite things. But just about the time Susie’s breathing leveled off and a momentary sense of peace settled over her, another contraction would begin.
“Stay with me!” I pleaded. “Hold on! You can do it!” My feeble attempts at comfort seemed worthless as the inexorable rhythms of her body took over. The scene around her faded from view. Her breathing sped up and her back arched as the great, wrenching force inside of her grew more intense. Occasionally she opened her eyes and looked at me imploringly, just as a contraction hit her full force. I would grip her tightly, trying to take away her pain, to will it into me through some herculean psychic effort. But each time I Iost her. Hers was an old battle and it had to be fought alone.
Women have no choice but to embody the virtues men so casually parade around: strength, courage, stamina, the will to continue to the end. Labor is a marathon effort and there is no dropping out. Even after many hours of exhausting contractions, grappling with a force like Ezekiel’s angel, there is still the pushing to contend with.
For Susie there was four hours of it.
Until now she had to simply bear the contractions in her own desperate way. Once her cervix was fully dilated and the baby was positioned for launch she had to take an active role in pushing him out. With the onset of each contraction she was told to grip the rails, bear down with her feet, and PUSH with everything she had.
I thought I would pass out with weariness just watching. The kid was stuck. (Or else he just liked it in there, I reasoned). I manned my post at the fetal monitor, watching the zigzag tracings that represented the activity of Susie’s uterus. As each contraction approached the needle began to jump like the signs of an impending earthquake on a seismograph. My job was to alert her a few seconds ahead of time so she could get her breathing right and push in unison with her contractions.
This went on for a long time. My eyes began playing tricks on me; my brain wiggled with each squiggle of the monitor. Once or twice I even dozed off, a wayward apostle in my private Gethsemane. I’ll never know how Susie stuck with it, where those reserves of strength came from, why she didn’t just roll over and give up the ghost. Women know something that men can’t quite grasp. The victory is sure. A new baby is about to be born.
Many years have passed since that endless night of beauty and pain, but the images remain, especially that final moment: choking back sobs, blinded by tears, digging my nails into Susie’s hand as she gave one last gargantuan push, let out a strange animal howl … and pushed out my son.
“It’s a boy!” I yelled, as his penis slid clear.
A boy. Whining and wet and pink, lying on the belly of his exhausted mother, who still had the strength to smile.
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