My head is spinning out of control. I feel like I am on a tilt a whirl at the carnival and it’s not stopping.
A wave of nausea has hit me so hard I edge my way along the wall in the direction of the bathroom. The antiseptic cleaners sting my nose, which make the room spin harder. I open the bathroom door and drop on all fours, positioning my head over the white bright toilet bowl.
The next wave of nausea convinces me that I am going throw up. However, nothing happens. This position hurts my back so I sit my bum on the hard cement floor. What is wrong with me?
I need to go back into the room to tell my Grandma I want to leave mom’s hospital room. Everyone is crying. My mom is not able to speak. I do not understand what is going on. “Everything okay in there?” A man’s voice asks.
I realize I am not actually in that hospital room. I am in my own bathroom, in my own house. Its twenty-two years later and I am nauseous again, but for a very different reason. My big, swollen belly is making it hard for me to get up.
My husband comes in and dabs a cold cloth on my forehead while I steady myself on the sink. I cannot tell him what I just experienced. I do not understand it myself.
He yawns as he asks me if I want to lie down on the couch or upstairs in our bedroom. “The couch. I can’t do more stairs”. In the ten steps it takes to get to the couch, I stop twice for contractions. It is Day 2 of labour without any hope in sight. The contractions are every ten minutes for thirty-six hours now. We have just gotten back from our second attempt to be admitted at the hospital.
After I am settled on the couch I realize it is 2:30 am, so I insist my husband to go to bed. He hands me my cell phone so I can phone him if anything happens. He places his phone next to him in bed which is one flight of stairs up. The house is very still.
I turn on the television in hopes of distraction. It does not help. I cannot get my mind off my bathroom flashback. I really could use my mom right now. I was ten years old when she died of breast cancer. When I had that intense bout of nausea outside her hospital room, I did not know that four hours later she would pass away.
Even though it has been over twenty-five years, I still miss her. I want to ask her about what she went through when she was in labour with my younger sister and I. One of my labour fears is that I will give birth to a big baby as my sister and I were both over eleven pounds.
I am almost ready to wake up Michael. The loneliness is too much to bear. It is my finally throwing up that wakes him. After seventy hours of labour, we have a healthy baby girl named Alexa Patricia weighing 8 pounds, 12 ounces. After one night in the hospital, we are released to go home. I could not wait to show Alexa her home and her new crib and our cats.
I ache not being able to share this wonderful day with my mom.
Printer-friendly version