DRAMA QUEEN FOR A DAY Arlene Green
the worst day of my life was the day my second child was born. I was not particularly happy with my life, being stranded in the sticks in Kentucky. I had moved there because my husband was supposed to be transferred to Fort Campbell, but that had never happened. Saudi Arabia had happened and he was stuck in Germany for the duration. I woke up that morning, rolled out of bed, took one look out the window and groaned. Pouring down rain. Great. I had to go and feed my friend Linda's dogs. She had been called away to England on a family emergency and I was the best thing she could come up with on such short notice. I resigned myself to my fate and kept telling myself that in two days the dogs would go to the kennel and I wouldn't have to do this anymore. I waddled out to the car and squeezed my two-weeks overdue bulk under the steering wheel, cursing, not for the first time, that our car did not have tilt steering. When I arrived at Linda's, there was a body of water comparable to Lake Michigan all over her lovely hardwood floors. Jasmine, her sulky Doberman, had managed to get the bedroom door open and had chewed through Linda's king-size waterbed. As I was surveying the damage, I felt my first contraction. It hit hard. Catching my breath, I decided that the baby would wait long enough for me to at least sop up the water and drain the bed. Then the second contraction hit. I gathered myself and went looking for an attachment for the bed so I could drain it. I couldn't find it. I decided that it was probably possible to drain it with just the hose, which happened to be outside in the pouring rain in her ridiculously overcrowded storage shed. After much pulling and tugging and about four contractions later, I retreated sopping wet into the house dragging the hose behind me. It would not drain. Searching my brain, I recalled that you could siphon gas by sucking on the hose to get it started. So I began to suck, still in labor. Finally, I got a mouthful of the most disgusting fluid ever to cross my lips. I then decided it was time to go to the hospital and called a cab. The cab took me to the house of my only other friend, Emma. Unfortunately Emma was not there. Her 17-year-old son was there. When I explained the situation to him, he turned pale and went to call his mother. Emma was my birth coach. He then looked at me worriedly and asked if I was going to have the baby right then. He asked me this question about a hundred times before Emma finally arrived. Emma timed my contractions and declared that it was time to go to the hospital -- a fact I was already well aware of. En route to her car, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to pee. I had to pee right then. I could not waddle back to her townhouse. So I waddled in between two trucks and piddled right there in the parking lot. At this point I couldn't have cared less. We got to the hospital and they checked me in. I lay there strapped to the seismograph with this godawful uncomfortable belt that comes with it. Suddenly my contractions slowed down. I was eight centimeters dilated and the nurses had wandered off. Emma went in search of a nurse because I had, once again, to pee but I was strapped into everything and couldn't very well drag it to the bathroom with me. Emma did not return with the nurse in time. I stood up and grabbed a bedpan with every intention of unhooking myself when another contraction hit. So there I stood, bedpan clamped between my knees, peeing through the worst contraction I had ever experienced. Emma returned with the nurse. The nurse took the bed pan and helped me back into bed. I less than politely inquired if she shouldn't, in fact, check to see how far along I was. She did this and then exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, you are all the way dilated and your water has broken." Suddenly the room was a flurry of activity. I was too far along for them to move me to the delivery table so they just wheeled my bed into the delivery room. At this point a nurse stationed on the left side of me grabbed my left leg and pulled it up so far that my knee was touching my ear. Labor was suddenly forgotten. I looked at her with all the calm I could muster and instructed her to let go of my leg. She looked at me and said, "Push, push!" I more forcibly requested that she let go of my leg. She told me to push again. A third time I told her to let go of my leg and a third time she told me to push. Finally I simply doubled up my right fist and punched her as
hard as I could. She let go of my leg. Four pushes later I gave birth to an
8-pound baby boy. They wheeled me into recovery and I promptly fell
asleep. When I awoke, I made a couple of promises to myself -- the first
being that I would never dog-sit for anyone with a water bed again and
the second that I would never give birth in a military hospital again if
I could help it.
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