Mommy D
"Submit something for the site!" they said. "You lazy bitch, you can't just be entertained by all our hard work without contributing something," they thought. So off I wandered, in search of a submission. I kicked a few ideas around, nixing them almost immediately. I got grumpy. "Write about something you know," said Mr. Dupree. Well hell. I know about all sorts of stuff, but that doesn't mean it's entertaining or even remotely interesting to a cross section of the general population. I finally gave up somewhere between soccer practice and the science fair. Right now, I know about kids.
STORK, SHMORK. I NEED A MARTINI.
In all actuality, I'm not really sure HOW I got here. Somewhere between concert laminates and Manhattan power lunches, I found myself married. And worse yet, pregnant. I never liked kids - still don't as a matter of fact. For the most part, they're sticky, smelly, loud and misbehaved - tiny drunk people that never sober up.
Pregnant. Good Lord. I wasn't overly shocked or distraught. It was just "one of those things" that I always knew was coming. Like Armageddon. No sense panicking early - the day of reckoning would be here soon enough. For the most part, I refused to acknowledge it. I sneered and snarled and double-dog-dared my body to evidence even a hint of morning sickness, fatigue or weakness. Like a strong peasant woman, I sailed through my pregnancy without a hint of discomfort. In fact, at times I would almost forget I was packing until some wiseacre would come up and ask me if I had a Coors Party Ball under my shirt.
And let me just take this opportunity to sidetrack for a moment. What is it about being obviously pregnant that turns your body into public property? Total strangers would come up and ask to touch my stomach. The fuck? "Only if I can crush your balls in my palm, you sick freak." Old women were the worst. They would offer unbidden advice incessantly, accompanied by a slowly bobbing head as if to say "Those idiots at Johns Hopkins think they know medicine, but they've got NOTHING on me." Hey, if you're pregnant right now, write this down: The next time a crazy old bat comes up to you and says "you're carrying low - it's a boy", in her best Marie Laveau voice, immediately take down her name and address. That way, when you squeeze out 7.5 pounds of Sugar & Spice a couple months later, you can drive to her house, dump a load of dead frogs, snails and decaying puppy dog tails on her front lawn and bang on her front door, demanding she cut you a check for $375.00 to reimburse you for the all-blue sailor suit wardrobe you sprung for at "Mommy & Me."
No, I didn't buy blue suits. I didn't buy much at all. I didn't listen to those silly hags. I listened to ultrasound technology and my 80 year old obstetrician (dubbed "Old Man Stirrups") that informed me that I would be giving birth to a "split tail."
Friends who knew me didn't bother to ask about baby showers for fear that the inevitable onslaught of my violent eyeball rolling would throw the earth off its axis. I didn't want any of that shit. Moreso, I didn't want to spend hours locked in a room full of yapping women explaining to me the nuances of using a tiny turkey baster to suck ropes of mucous out of an infant's nose. Instead, I purchased a good owner's manual and assembled their recommended list of *must have* accoutrement and prayed like hell I wouldn't need most of it.
I continued along my merry way, in full denial that I was having a baby, until 5:00 one afternoon when Darth Vader sliced through my lower body with a light saber. I fired off an onslaught of memos, organized my desk, packed my files and headed home. Organized. Calm. Cool. Collected. A quick call to Old Man Stirrups let me know that I didn't need to arrive at the hospital until my contractions were 6 minutes apart. "Well, I'm at 7 minutes," I told him. "You still have a few hours - try to rest," he wheezed, "Oh - and don't eat anything."
At midnight, the sperm donor yawned and informed me that he was going to bed. "No sense in BOTH of us missing out on sleep," he tenderly announced. I sat on the couch and dozed, being awakened by Darth every 7 minutes like clockwork. My eyes burned a hole in the wall clock, waiting for the mystical 6 minute mark to arrive so I could wake his no-good ass up to drive me the 30 minutes to the hospital.
The sky lightened in the east. No 6 minutes. He wandered out of the bedroom at 8:00 and asked "what's for breakfast?" I threw something at his head. A brick or a book or something. All I remember was that it was rectangular and had corners.
I'll save you from the rest of the day, but suffice it to say that Old Man Stirrups was truly terrified when (at 4 p.m.) I crawled OVER his desk, grabbed his turkey-wattle neck in my claw of a hand and hissed that he wouldn't see another sunrise if he didn't admit me to the hospital immediately. He did.
Once ensconced on my Craftmatic bed, all manner of contraptions were attached to my body. Nurses gathered round to oooh and aaah over the massive size of my contractions without any measurable progress to my other bits and pieces that make baby exits possible. An unfortunate hospital volunteer wandered into my room at 11 p.m. with a bowl of ice chips for me to suck on. Ice chips? I've been in full labor for 30 hours with no food, and you bring me fucking ICE CHIPS?!?! When she finished cleaning up the bowl and rapidly melting ice chips off my floor (no, I didn't knock it out of her hand - it was just a big contraction that took me be surprise. No, really), I told her to bring me a raw steak or don't come back. She didn't.
At 2 a.m., something wonderful happened. The wires and machines attached to my body went off like an air raid siren. "BABY IN DISTRESS!! BABY IN DISTRESS!!" they shouted. Oh sure. Leave me in excruciating misery for 33 hours, but the minute Princess hiccups, they call in the surgery team. I was whipped onto my side and a needle was inserted into my spine. Instant Bliss. They had me unzipped and un-pregnant in about 4 minutes.
Yes, it was a tad hellish, but I learned things. Important things. First, spinals are gooood. When I gave birth to my second child, I walked BACKWARDS into the hospital, holding up the back of my shirt, finger pointing to the point on my spine where the needle was to be inserted. Second, c-sections are gooood. Screw this waiting around on nature stuff. I scheduled the baby removal like a civilized person and was quite happy I did.
Due to the high altitude here, Princess had to spend a bit of time with her head under a thing that looked suspiciously like a cake cover. Mmmm... cake. They brought her to me a couple of hours later - a log of something in flannel mummy attire that looked like it had been wrapped by an entire tribe of Hopi weavers.
The nurse placed the bundle in my arms and clasped her hands together, beaming at me expectantly. I didn't know the protocol. Was I supposed to tip her? No, that was silly. It was obvious by my attire that I didn't have pockets. What could this woman possible want? "Umm... thank you?" I said. She huffed and stomped out of my room in her squeaky white shoes.
I looked down (with, I'm sure, a slightly accusatory expression) at the small person in the bundle. It looked back at me. And that, my friends, is where the story really begins.
by
Mitzi Dupree
