FIRST BIRTH IN THE FAMILY
In the night, I heard a sound like gasoline rushing out of a broken pipe mingling with the voice of Tania, my older sister, calling out to Mom. I knew right then her water broke.
I left my room to find her sitting on the toilet, her legs spread wide enough to make space for her bulging belly. Mom got to the bathroom at the same time as I did, and at the sight of us, Tania looked up, her eyes round with hysteria. When her flow stopped, Tania burst into tears. That was not how she planned it. Her labor was happening two weeks before the due date, and her husband, Jerry, wouldn’t be home for a couple of days.
“Why are you crying?” asked a drowsy but poised Mom.
“Couldn’t she have waited for just two more days?” She sobbed.
Mom helped Tania to her feet and flushed the toilet.
“Why did you flush it?” I panicked — could we just flush it like that? Did we have to save the water?
“What did you want us to do with it?” Mom replied.
Tania wouldn’t stop crying. Mom sat her on a chair in the living room, but the water was still dripping. I looked at the clock with dread. “We don’t have enough time,” I told them, but Tania reassured me that the first pregnancy was always a slow birth.
She tried to contact Jerry, but he was fast asleep. She then contacted her brother-in-law, who became alarmed by the sound of her crying. He thought something bad had happened, and it was hard for him to understand her between sobs. When Tania finally calmed down, she explained to him the purpose of her call, and he, in turn, reached out to Jerry himself.
A few minutes later, she called the doctor’s office. She was told to shower, have a light breakfast, and head to the hospital as soon as the contractions started. Making arrangement to get to the hospital proved to be the biggest challenge. Tania had an international health insurance, which meant almost no hospital accepted it. The closest hospital she could find was fifty miles away from home.
The morning moved slowly. We ate breakfast; we pressed and convinced Jerry to change his flight; we chatted about how little space was left in Tania’s womb for the baby to move, and how, despite that, she still managed to move around carelessly, causing Tania pain.
This was all so new and strange to me. I knew vaguely the ups and downs of pregnancy, but this was up close and personal — the raucous sound of the water coming out, the changing skin pigmentation, the irrepressible pain of the baby pressing your organs, and the desperate measures to not have your belly tainted by stretched marks. Mom said her belly became unbearably itchy and stretched beyond recognition when she carried my twin, Sybile, and me.
We lived in New Jersey, and since it was getting close to rush hour, Mom arranged with my uncle to drop us off at the train station to New York. The turnpike was going to be packed with commuters hurrying into the city, and Tania wanted to avoid the traffic and crowded environment.
But unfortunately, the train, too, was packed. Mom and I held on to a pole, and another commuter was charitable enough to give his seat to Tania. While on the train, the water continued to drip, piercing through the sanitary pad Tania wore and staining the back of her dress.
“Do you want me to stop the train?” asked a woman when she realized Tania was in labor. “I’m happy to skip work to go to the hospital with you.”
Another man also offered help, but Tania pointed to us, reassuring both of them that her family was with her.
We got off 34th Street, jostling our way out of the station with an overnight bag, a pillow, and a box that contained a medicinal ball. I also carried with me my professional camera. The back of Tania’s light blue dress was drenched, and it looked more like she peed on herself than anything else.
We found a cab right away, and we urged the driver to take the shortest cut to the hospital. He was nice, but the poor man wasn’t pleased with the situation. As soon as he dropped us off in front of the main hospital entrance, he checked to see if the water stained his back seat.
One of the hospital staff came with a wheelchair to take Tania to the Labor and Delivery Center. There, near the reception area, a husband and wife were filing their paperwork. How small the wife’s belly looked! But she couldn’t sit. She clawed the top of the chair and curled her toes at the pain of her contraction.
Only one guest was allowed per patient. The nurses led Tania and Mom to the labor unit, and I stayed behind with the bags in the waiting area until I could go to her room. When I could finally go see her, I found her looking like a mad woman with tousled hair and a hospital gown.
“She saved her flip-flops for you,” said a nurse. My feet were indeed hurting. My flats were new and not made for the long journey.
Tania’s cervix had just began dilating, and to find that out, a nurse had to push a couple fingers inside her vagina. The nurse and the doctor came back a couple of hours later to perform the same routine, and Tania groaned in pain as the doctor’s fingers went deep inside her. He had to cup his hands when he removed his gloved fingers to prevent the fluid he had unintentionally collected from spilling. Still, I could hear droplets hitting the floor. He announced the cervix didn’t dilate as much as he had expected. It was going to be a long day, but at least Jerry would have time to get to the hospital.
Poor Sybile, though, was going to miss the birth. She, too, had scheduled her flight around the expected due date of the baby. She requested updates every other minute.
The contractions were becoming sharper, and Tania let out long, raw moans each time her belly contracted — a different image from the woman we knew so well. The pain left no room for composure. It was past midnight when Jerry came to the hospital straight from the airport. Tania’s cervix still didn’t dilate. The baby’s head was in the right position, but she had trouble moving down. A caesarean section was becoming the obvious option. Tania was freaking out about what that meant for her body.
With no other choice but to wait, we got “comfortable.” Mom and Jerry took turns sleeping in the long chair, and I curled up like a cat in another chair by the window. In the morning, we tried all the routines her midwife suggested with the medicinal ball, but nothing helped. Her basin was too small for the baby. Her primary OB/GYN doctor came to break the news to us: she would need to give birth through C-section.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” he said to a devastated Tania. “I will give you a beautiful scar, and you will be able to wear a teeny-weeny bikini again.”
I snapped a couple of pictures of Jerry and Tania before they were led to the operation room, and Mom and I waited for two hours in the waiting room. Finally, Jerry came to announce the birth of Abi. He had been the one to hold her first, and he had pressed her to his chest for skin-to-skin contact. The midwife suggested so to build a connection with the baby. I went to the recovery room to find a quiet baby dozing off from time to time, a different image from the energetic, dancing baby Tania carried all those months.
“Is that her?” I asked the nurse.
“Yes, that’s her,” she confirmed.
I looked at the baby again. She opened her eyes to follow the noise of Mom, Jerry, and me bustling about the tiny space, and then she shut them right back up. The nurse removed her from the incubator and placed her on Tania’s chest, where Abi guided herself organically to the nipple. This was going to be a new adventure. One that would teach me a lot about patience, something I’d never had for children.
