You know, after all that? I really felt for that shark.
The problem is that C-sections aren’t all that new to modern medicine. I guess they’ve been around since, well, Caesar. And as much as I’d like to corner the sympathy market on how awful it was, I did just fine. Charlie did, too. We all got out of there alive, with innards smushed back in and intact. As my doctor, Dr. Boo, cheerfully put it, “Everything below your bellybutton is all jacked up”—thanks to the double whammy of long labor and then surgery. Dr. Boo was a great obstetrician, but he also lived up to his name. He freaked me out a bit. Still, the end result was a gorgeous little boy.
After Charlie’s birth Dr. Boo announced, “It sure is a good thing for modern medicine! Without it you both would have been dead!” He grinned and mentioned the beer idea for breastfeeding. I stared at him blankly, and Brian patted my hand, realizing that this news might be a bit upsetting to a woman who just had her uterus placed outside of her body, where no right thinking uterus should be. I just nodded, yes, and then thought, What did you say about beer? Bedside manner was not my doctor’s forte, so I did my usual upon hearing upsetting news: I pretended I didn’t hear it and then filed it away to freak out about later. But I did hold on to that beer advice like it was a life preserver.
So I had a baby—despite myself. As I lay in that bed and contemplated the gloom descending outside, I couldn’t help but wonder. How in the world am I going to pull this off? There was simply no way I could really do this whole mom business.
Once, when I was a freshman, the hottest fraternity at our college invited me to a large party. Their parties were epic. Their boys were of a bronze hue, so muscular and smart they were a walking Ralph Lauren ad. And here I was, being asked to mingle with them. The party was an invitation-only deal, and I still wonder how I managed to get the golden ticket for this one. I wasn’t in a sorority, and I wore flannel a lot. I wrote poetry and played the flute. I wasn’t a frat party kind of girl.
Of course I went. I put on a slightly hookerish Hawaiian get-up because the party had the creative theme of Beach Party at Fiji! I wore a lot of frosted lip gloss—so much that my long hair kept getting stuck in it as I tried to swish it around. As soon as I made it down to the dark and bass-thumping basement at the house, something in me clenched up with fear. I did not belong here. This was for stud football players and cheerleaders; these people were not my tribe nor did I want to be in theirs.
But I couldn’t just leave. That would be pathetic. The only way to survive this kind of atmosphere was to have a big cup of the punch they were dolling out. The frat boys knew it; even the cheerleaders knew it. We were all a little bit scared. So I drank the Kool-Aid and danced the night away, eventually at ease and rather in love with every mook who attempted to make deep conversation while we shuffled along to Salt-N-Pepa. I fit right in. I even had fun. But part of me knew that without that red cup—there was simply no way.
Staring out my hospital room window, I blinked in surprise. I felt like that girl in the Hawaiian miniskirt and matching scrunchy. I had a new dance partner and only one beer to help me start the dance.
TOP TEN REASONS TO WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO
1. I have to redeem the fact that I used to wear neon colors and scrunchies.
2. Catharsis. This is one of those SAT words you learned in eleventh grade you can actually use later in life. Do not confuse it with the word “catheters.” This can be a troubling experience on many levels.
3. It’s always darkest before the dawn. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. It’s a blessing in disguise. Uh, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?
4. It’s either this or take up croquet.
5. I owe it to my children and my husband. They are the binding, the pages, and all the ink. And perhaps I will make us millions.
6. I owe it to my friends and my community. They have been very patient with me.
7. Back to that millions thing: I am not kidding. Please tell people to buy this book.
8. If it is made into a movie, I want to be played by Sandra Bullock.
9. It’s always a good experience to completely humble yourself. That’s in the Bible somewhere.
10. I know you’re out there, you tired mommies, who might need this book. I hope reading it helps you as much as it helped me to write it.
I Never Danced on Tables I Never Danced on Tables
“Really, Dana. I do not understand why you cannot just HOLD HANDS.” My parents are in bed; it’s past midnight. My mother is glaring so hard I fear her glasses might explode. Explaining why I was late because my boyfriend’s jeep got stuck in a field behind Metcalf South Shopping Center is not going well.
I am so humiliated. My response to shame and sorrow is to act like I am too sophisticated for this conversation, or even for parents. This makes my mother’s glasses start throwing sparks. I slouch next to their door, willing the lecture to end, so I can somehow just droop away, undetected, perhaps until I am eighteen. I attempt to arrange my face into something between polite interest and sullen languor, twitching back and forth so much that I’m sure I end up looking rather constipated. My mother crosses her arms and waits, wanting a response, perhaps a promise, that my relationship with the total love of my life will become as platonic as a Nickelodeon show.
This is, of course, totally impossible. He is the total love of my life. Like, TOTALLY. It is the east and he is the sun, kind of love. Although when I did try to quote Shakespeare to the boy, he stared at me blankly and asked if that was from one of his mixed tapes of The Cure. My constipation increases as I try to find words to explain the gravitational tug of this everlasting and all-encompassing love that is my eternity. But all I can utter is, “He’s just . . . and me . . . we are so . . . I can’t.” And, as is ever the case in every John Hughes movie, my parents just do not understand.
But then, I see it. On my father’s face: just a whiff of a smirk. It travels across his mouth and settles for a second, but then he wipes it away and replaces it with a frown. And I wonder, Is it possible he might understand the undertow of love a little more than I realized? I know I saw it.
As time would tell, I would find out a lot more about how my dad and I are very similar.
It doesn’t help that I show up covered in mud and boysenberries. Because, of course, we’d decided to park under a berry tree. Berry trees are romantic. Sitting under the stars, making out, slapping at mosquitos, his jeep slowly sinking into the muck—also romantic. But the entire backside of my white Bongo jeans was plastered with large red and purple splotches, the scarlet letter of snogging.
I’d seen Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. I was well-versed in teenage longing—the type of love that feels like the Titanic
