I’m not talking about just a little bit. Take the worst pain you’ve ever experienced, magnify it by twenty, and stretch it across so many hours, you pray for death.
That’s birth.
“You’re being a little overdramatic.”
The nurse looks over, knowing my mood went from bad to shit in under a half a millisecond.
“Leo, if I live through this, I’m going to make you pay.”
“Come on. You love me,” he says and tries to lean in and kiss my cheek.
I turn my head, not wanting anything to do with his lips. “So. Help. Me. God.”
“How’s it going?” my mother asks, bringing me a new plastic cup filled with ice chips and oblivious to the carnage that’s about to take place.
“She’s thinking of all the ways she can off me,” Leo tells her with a small laugh like he doesn’t actually think I’m serious.
“Don’t laugh, kiddo. The hate is real at this stage,” my mom says and shakes her head. “It’s like cornering a wild bear while covered in honey. You’re liable to get mauled.”
Leo backs up a step, glancing down at me in shock. “Well, I…”
“She blames you for this.” My mother waves her hand over my belly. “It’ll take her a while before she can ever look at you the same way again.”
“I’m right here,” I say because they’re talking about me like I’m not even in the room.
I know my mom’s only trying to help. How the hell she did this four times is beyond me. I can’t see myself willingly doing this again, no matter how cute the kid grows up to be.
My mother hands me the ice chips, but all I really want is a large pizza covered in pepperoni and dripping with grease.
“Thanks, Ma.” I try to muster a smile.
My insides are twisting again like I’m being torn apart by the baby’s fingernails one layer at a time. “You did this shit four times,” I say to my mother when I can finally breathe again. “How? Why?”
She takes my hand in hers and smiles sweetly. “When you lay eyes on your baby and fall head over heels in love, you forget the pain.”
I laugh cynically. “I will never forget this pain. Never.”
“Sweetheart,” she says softly. “All the happy memories and years you’ve given me have released every second of agony you put me through when I was in labor. And I mean, it was hell on earth. Epidurals were still too new when you were born for me to get one without worry.”
“I’m dying, Ma,” I groan.
“Don’t be a drama queen. In the olden days…”
“Don’t tell me people squatted in a field, had the baby, and kept on working. I don’t want to hear it.”
Leo collapses in a chair next to my bed, looking more disheveled than I’ve ever seen him before. His hair’s messy, the first three buttons on his dress shirt are undone, and his tie is loose and hanging around his neck.
“Well, if you’re anything like me, sweetheart, you won’t be in labor much longer.”
Pain slices through me again as every muscle in my abdomen tightens. I gasp, trying to breathe to alleviate some of the pain, but nothing seems to help.
“Are we ready to see how far along you are?” the doctor asks as he walks into the room, looking way too cheerful for me.
“Get this baby out of me,” I tell him. If I could reach down and pull the baby out myself, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Anything to make the pain stop.
The doctor puts on a pair of gloves and sits down between my legs. “Have you thought any more about an epidural?”
I had always said I wanted to do natural childbirth, using the techniques of Lamaze. I thought I was a hard-ass and could take pain better than most people…which is ridiculous. I was obviously delusional.
