Entry 11: Let It Be.

I was now dilated to 2cm for the second week in a row. This was the third bit of bad news I had heard come out of Dr. Dream Crusher’s mouth. The first was, “My wife,” which was about 3 times easier to hear than, “just had triplets.”

I was grumpy. I was starving. I looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I was beginning to understand how Kirstie Alley must feel. In an effort to save my sanity I decided to do what my crazy English friends, John, Paul, George and Ringo had been trying to tell me all these years and just let it be. So I did what any peace-loving, mature adult would do; I flipped off the lady in the drive through for taking too long, ate my weight in beans and cheese and went home to cry to my mom about my backache.

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry that you’re so uncomfortable.” My mother sympathized. “Tell me more about your backache.”

I took this opportunity to vent completely.

“Oh Mom, it’s TERRIBLE! It just throbs and aches and…sometimes more than others but…it just never goes away…” I said, trying to piece together all of my random thoughts.

“Oh dear, that sounds dreadful! So…does it feel like period cramps only worse?”

“Yes…”

“And, does it, like, come and go?”

“Yes…”

“And, is it, like, getting progressively more intense?”

And that’s when I peed myself for the second time that day. By the look on my face you’d have thought she just informed me that someone had finally created an everlasting stick of licorice. Damn that woman – smart as can be. What the hell did I need a doctor for? I realized suddenly that everything I needed to know about childbirth my mom had already experienced 6 times over! Having abruptly come to that realization it also dawned on me that it really should come as a shock to no one that I was fuzzy on the details of birth control…

But anyway, who cares! I was experiencing contractions the whole time I just didn’t know it! Could it be that I was finally in labor?

Due to my mother’s chronic insomnia she had no plans for the remainder of the evening and stayed up to all hours helping me count and record my new found contractions. To my disappointment there was nothing consistent about them and by morning I was experiencing the same amount of discomfort at the same intervals as before with no progress.

Determined and not quite ready to give up hope, I called in for reinforcements.

My sister was the best husband in the world. She dropped everything to come and make fun of me splashing around in the bathtub like a baby beluga and count my contractions. At the time, dropping everything for her included chemistry homework and MySpace but I welcomed her selflessness nonetheless. She had been everything I wanted in a husband. She nursed my bloody noses, endured countless trips to Taco Bell and she even contained her horrified reaction when I told her of my recurring dream of having sex with Jim Carrey in a blood filled coffin. This was great practice for her actually. It was like foreshadowing for later in life when she would actually have an incestuous, pregnant lesbian dream starring herself and yours truly - which, incidentally, makes bloody sex with Jim Carrey seam almost plausible.

Moments later my other sister showed up. I thought of her in a slightly less loving way but not because she wasn’t a great person. It was because she was constantly making the rest of us feel inadequate. She’s the type of sister who will call you and warn you that she’s hung over, she hasn’t showered and she looks like hell only to show up moments later perfectly quaffed and beautiful wearing something fabulous with a matching handbag and remind you that she’s been up since dawn packing her children organic lunches, volunteering in their classrooms and feeding the homeless.

After my feet had soaked up the majority of the bath water I got out of the bathtub and laid on the couch with my sisters who were trying to talk me into something I had purposely avoided up until now. They wanted me to drink Caster oil in an attempt to bring on more active labor. I was unsure about drinking any slimy liquids I’d never heard of before but due to my pregnancy induced lack of judgment I was way more easily convinced to do stupid ass things. In the spirit of having this baby before sun down, I decided to put some clothes on and take the drink. After all, what did I have to lose?

Entry 10: Grass On The Infield

To my amazement, I had not gone blind over night and I was only slightly pissed off to find that my transgression did not produce any consistent contracting.

This kid was more stubborn than I thought.

I missed the days when my persistent sweating didn’t create yellow stains in the ass of my white pants and I could control my flatulence. I was ready to get back to doing things I enjoyed like naked cartwheels and facing backwards when I peed in public restrooms to freak out the lady in the stall next to me. You know that women always check out the shoes in the neighboring stall to compare them to her own. Now days I was lucky if I could even wear shoes. If I did they had to be secured to my feet with masking tape before sunrise or my feet would swell to unthinkable proportions and tear through the laces like a Sketchers version of The Incredible Hulk. And ever since I had slipped and fell down a concrete stairwell, spending a day in the hospital with a broken rib, my doctor had taken me off sandals until further notice.

Due to the fact that it was July and my parents lived on an ant hill, there was no comfort in sight for me. Wearing shoes made me sweat. My sweat attracted the ants. Being barefoot made me swell which made me sweat which attracted the ants…F this.

And F this back ache I couldn’t get rid of.

Thankfully I had a doctor’s appointment and I didn’t think anybody would notice if I “accidentally” showed up an hour early to sit in the air conditioned office for a while with my feet up while eating grapes and nonchalantly tearing out and pocketing my favorite articles from their old copies of Parenting magazine. When it was finally time for me to see the doctor I noticed that before handing me a paper gown and asking me to strip down, they put me in an unfamiliar room to wait for an unfamiliar doctor. I immediately ran to the front desk to do some further investigating.

“Who is this imposter posing as my gynecologist?” I interrogated. “I wasn’t aware my doctor wouldn’t be here. I don’t know this person!”

Lies.

“I’ve never even heard of this guy before!”

More lies. His name was on the building. And, truth be told, I knew who he was.

Now don’t get me wrong - in the way of people I didn’t know probing my vagina and fondling my breasts, I decided as early as my junior year of high school that I preferred that stranger to be male. But I had given up bikini waxing in my sixth month of pregnancy and I had long surpassed the point of being mentally stable enough to blindly guide sharp objects such as a razor toward my vagina. This guy was HOT…I’m talking soap opera hot! I knew at some point he’d be unable to resist my girlish good looks and charm and that eventually he'd beg me to allow him to father my son and purchase for me a nice new set of fun bags with his doctor's salary, but I didn’t want his first impression of my vagina to resemble that of Sasquatch. In the same instant I realized how comfortable I had become using the word vagina.

Thanks to my actual doctor’s horrible decision to spend her July vacationing on a yacht on the water somewhere, Sasquatch would have to do.

Defeated, I waddled back to my exam room to wait, and made a mental note that the backs of these paper exam gowns don’t fasten themselves. The next time I burst from my exam room sporting a paper gown in an angry fit of rage, I would have to remember to do it before I take my pants off.