[ed. For Anna.]
It was Monday, June 2nd, and I was wide awake at 6 a.m. Maybe to some of you this hour doesn’t sound remarkable, but for me it was. It was the first day in a lifetime of six in the mornings, and I made the three-hour leap all in one go.
By this point, it was 10 days past my due date, and I had a very specific and recurring fantasy of being moved around town in a hammock flown by a helicopter. I wanted to be airlifted between boroughs.
When I told my fiancé, Dustin, this wish, he was quiet for a second. He had learned to reply to me with caution, but I imagine in this case he just couldn’t help himself.
“Like a whale?” he asked.
I laughed, standing on the curb somewhere. Actually yes, come to think of it: Like a whale.
On the morning of June 2nd I had been waking up “still pregnant” for quite some time—41 weeks and two days to be exact; 289 days. My mom was in town already, at an Airbnb rental a block away. Dustin was done with work. I was chugging raspberry red leaf tea, bouncing on a purple exercise ball whenever I could, shoving evening primrose oil pills up my vagina, paying $40 a pop at community acupuncture sessions I didn’t believe in, and doing something called “The Labor Dance.” The Dance (preferred shorthand) involves rubbing your belly in a clockwise direction—vigorously—and then getting as close to twerking as one can at 41 weeks pregnant.
I never did get far enough into adulthood where I was waking up at 6 a.m. for self-betterment, which is one among many things I thought I would master before having children. Add to that: novel writing, working out, makeup, clothing, getting up early. As I got closer and closer to childbirth I still held out hope for a few of them. I went to Sephora; I opened Google Docs; downloaded the Couch to 5k app for the tenth time; waddled around the track at my local park, my baby bump a-bouncing. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Anyway, it was 6 a.m. and I was wide awake and staring at the wall. Then ow. It was like the crest of a wave of a period cramp; the worst moment, if you have forgotten to take Tylenol and then are cursing yourself that you forgot to take Tylenol. I lay there with my mind racing for awhile, then got up and ate Frosted Mini Wheats the way I had done for much of my pregnancy. Dustin was sleeping. I had another one. Another “thing.” Ow. I was kind of smiling at them at this point. Whoa, no way. Could it be? I got in the shower, jittery with this new development. Ow-ow-ow. I grabbed the towel rack and wondered how many more showers I’d take that day. In all of my natural childbirth classes everyone was raving about the magic of hot showers. I suspected, or feared, that their analgesic powers were not as good as advertised. Ow.
I got back into bed and lay there naked and huge, staring at Dustin sleeping, waiting for him to wake up. I didn’t want to look at the time, but I looked at the time and theows were 15 minutes or so apart. Ow, ow, ow I whispered into my arm. I grimaced; I cringed. So far the pain was about as bad as a stubbed toe. It was a “Damn!” pain, but it was still amusing. I was kind of proud of it, too, of my body. It had finally kicked itself into gear.
I was also a little excited because I didn’t feel like working that day, or going to another one of my doctor’s appointments at the hospital, a 40-minute commute away. The appointments are for overdue women. You sit in a room full of hospital-style armchairs (comfy but upholstered in cornflower blue, and with the kind of material you could wipe down with a washcloth) and you pull up your shirt to reveal your belly, while the nurse lubes you up and straps monitors to you and you sit with the other women whose bodies have not kicked into gear, and a chorus of fetal heart tones sing out in the room like horses galloping. The first time I sat there I cried with some kind of joy at this.
Today though, I was done with all of it.
by Meaghan O’Connell, Longreads | Read more:
Image: Kjell Reigstad
It was Monday, June 2nd, and I was wide awake at 6 a.m. Maybe to some of you this hour doesn’t sound remarkable, but for me it was. It was the first day in a lifetime of six in the mornings, and I made the three-hour leap all in one go.
By this point, it was 10 days past my due date, and I had a very specific and recurring fantasy of being moved around town in a hammock flown by a helicopter. I wanted to be airlifted between boroughs.
When I told my fiancé, Dustin, this wish, he was quiet for a second. He had learned to reply to me with caution, but I imagine in this case he just couldn’t help himself.“Like a whale?” he asked.
I laughed, standing on the curb somewhere. Actually yes, come to think of it: Like a whale.
On the morning of June 2nd I had been waking up “still pregnant” for quite some time—41 weeks and two days to be exact; 289 days. My mom was in town already, at an Airbnb rental a block away. Dustin was done with work. I was chugging raspberry red leaf tea, bouncing on a purple exercise ball whenever I could, shoving evening primrose oil pills up my vagina, paying $40 a pop at community acupuncture sessions I didn’t believe in, and doing something called “The Labor Dance.” The Dance (preferred shorthand) involves rubbing your belly in a clockwise direction—vigorously—and then getting as close to twerking as one can at 41 weeks pregnant.
I never did get far enough into adulthood where I was waking up at 6 a.m. for self-betterment, which is one among many things I thought I would master before having children. Add to that: novel writing, working out, makeup, clothing, getting up early. As I got closer and closer to childbirth I still held out hope for a few of them. I went to Sephora; I opened Google Docs; downloaded the Couch to 5k app for the tenth time; waddled around the track at my local park, my baby bump a-bouncing. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Anyway, it was 6 a.m. and I was wide awake and staring at the wall. Then ow. It was like the crest of a wave of a period cramp; the worst moment, if you have forgotten to take Tylenol and then are cursing yourself that you forgot to take Tylenol. I lay there with my mind racing for awhile, then got up and ate Frosted Mini Wheats the way I had done for much of my pregnancy. Dustin was sleeping. I had another one. Another “thing.” Ow. I was kind of smiling at them at this point. Whoa, no way. Could it be? I got in the shower, jittery with this new development. Ow-ow-ow. I grabbed the towel rack and wondered how many more showers I’d take that day. In all of my natural childbirth classes everyone was raving about the magic of hot showers. I suspected, or feared, that their analgesic powers were not as good as advertised. Ow.
I got back into bed and lay there naked and huge, staring at Dustin sleeping, waiting for him to wake up. I didn’t want to look at the time, but I looked at the time and theows were 15 minutes or so apart. Ow, ow, ow I whispered into my arm. I grimaced; I cringed. So far the pain was about as bad as a stubbed toe. It was a “Damn!” pain, but it was still amusing. I was kind of proud of it, too, of my body. It had finally kicked itself into gear.
I was also a little excited because I didn’t feel like working that day, or going to another one of my doctor’s appointments at the hospital, a 40-minute commute away. The appointments are for overdue women. You sit in a room full of hospital-style armchairs (comfy but upholstered in cornflower blue, and with the kind of material you could wipe down with a washcloth) and you pull up your shirt to reveal your belly, while the nurse lubes you up and straps monitors to you and you sit with the other women whose bodies have not kicked into gear, and a chorus of fetal heart tones sing out in the room like horses galloping. The first time I sat there I cried with some kind of joy at this.
Today though, I was done with all of it.
by Meaghan O’Connell, Longreads | Read more:
Image: Kjell Reigstad
