Not that I’m saying any of that to Brit.
I’ve held her steady while an anesthesiologist put in an epidural—something that Brit begged for, which totally surprised me, since we had planned to do a natural birth without drugs. Anglos like us stay away from them; the vast majority of people in the Movement look down on addicts. I whispered to her as she bent over the bed, the doctor feeling along her spine, asking if this was a good idea. When you have the baby, Brit said, you get to decide.
And I have to admit, whatever they’ve got pumping through her veins has really helped. She’s tethered to the bed, but she’s not writhing anymore. She told me that she can’t feel anything below her belly button. That if she wasn’t married to me she’d propose to the anesthesiologist.
Lucille comes in and checks the printout from the machine that’s hooked up to Brit, which measures the baby’s heartbeat. “You’re doing great,” she says, although I bet she says that to everyone. I tune out as she talks to Brit—not because I don’t care, but because there’s just some mechanical stuff you don’t want to think about if you ever want to see your wife as sexy again—and then I hear Lucille tell Brit that it’s time to push.
Brit’s eyes lock on mine. “Babe?” she says, but the next word jams up in her throat, and she can’t say what she wants to.
I realize that she is scared. This fearless woman is actually afraid of what comes next. I thread my fingers through hers. “I’m right here,” I tell her, although I’m just as terrified.
What if this changes everything between me and Brit?
What if this baby shows up and I don’t feel anything at all for it?
What if I turn out to be a lousy role model? A lousy father?
“The next time you feel a contraction,” Lucille says, “I want you to bear down.” She looks up at me. “Dad, get behind her, and when she has the contraction, you help her sit up so she can push.”
I’m grateful for the direction. This I can do. As Brit’s face reddens, as her body arcs like a bow, I cup her shoulders in my hands. She makes a low, guttural noise, like something in its last throes of life. “Deep breath in,” Lucille coaches. “You’re at the top of the contraction…now bring your chin to your chest for me and push right down into your bottom…”
Then, with a gasp, Brit goes limp, shrugging away from me as if she can’t stand having my hands on her. “Get off me,” she says.
Lucille beckons me closer. “She doesn’t mean it.”
“Like hell I don’t,” Brit spits out, another contraction rising.
Lucille arches her eyebrows at me. “Stand up here,” she suggests. “I’m going to hold Brit’s left leg and you’re going to hold the right…”
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. An hour later, Brit’s hair is matted to her forehead; her braid is tangled. Her fingernails have cut little moons in the back of my hand, and she’s not even making sense when she talks anymore. I don’t know how much more of this either of us can take. But then Lucille’s shoulders square during one long contraction, and the look on her face changes. “Hang on a minute,” Lucille says, and she pages the doctor. “I want you to take some slow breaths, Brit…and get ready to be a mom.”
It’s only a couple of minutes before the obstetrician bursts into the room and snaps on a pair of latex gloves, but trying to help Brit to not push feels like being told to hold back a tidal wave with a single sandbag. “Hello, Mrs. Bauer,” the doctor says. “Let’s have a baby.” He crouches down on a stool as Brit’s body tenses up again. My elbow is hooked around her knee so that she can strain against it, and as I look down, the brow of our baby rises like a moon in the valley of her legs.
It’s blue. Where there was nothing a breath ago, there is now a perfectly round head the size of a softball, and it’s blue.
Panicked, I look at Brit’s face, but her eyes are screwed shut with the force of the work she’s doing. Anger, which always seems to be on a low simmer in my blood, starts to boil over. They’re trying to pull one over on us. They’re lying. These goddamned—
And then the baby cries. In a rush of blood and fluid, it slips into this world, screaming and punching at the air with tiny fists, pinking up. They put my baby—my son—on Brit’s chest and rub him with a cloth. She’s sobbing, and so am I. Brit’s gaze is focused on the baby. “Look at what we made, Turk.”
“He’s perfect,” I whisper against her skin. “You’re perfect.” She cups her hand around our newborn’s head, like we are an electrical circuit that’s now complete. Like we could power the world.
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