Birth

The nurse pushes up the blunt end of the scalpel between my legs and a tremendous gush follows. The fountainhead of life. My husband, standing by my head, laughs in surprise. There is immense relief as my insides return from the verge of explosion. Timestamp: t – 10 hours.

Three hours later there is still no baby and the river is still flowing. I marvel at this abundance of fluid. Did the Indus find its way inside of me? Will it spawn a great civilisation along its banks before uniting with the sea? There is little time to ponder such matters though. The relief I felt earlier is a thing of the past, a faraway past – of a pain several octaves lower. Now each contraction is an obliteration. Consciousness recedes to the margins, infinitesimally thin. The pain inside of me is black and bigger than me, bigger than the earth, reaching the ends of the universe. I jolt up to stand. I cannot bear the rush lying down anymore. The midwife wants me to go on all fours if I cannot lie on my back. The baby needs to be observed through the contractions. Standing up won’t do. I do not understand but comply. She tells me she will be back in 45 minutes. I feel each cycle of blood flow into each cell of my body until my legs swell up to a bursting point. I dare to look up at the clock hanging above the bed. It has only been 15 minutes. I cry. Timestamp: t – 5 hours.

Some eons later I am told I must push. I don’t know when to push – the pain is constant. I am depleted. The doctor assures me I am doing wonderfully, the baby is descending and should be out soon.

“How soon?”, I ask.

“30 minutes!”

“30 minutes!?!!”

I cannot go on now. I feel done. I feel I have tried enough. I cry for my mother. I ask my husband to let me go, relieve me of this. I wail in the language of my own birth. The Russian doctor thinks I’m cursing at her and wants me to curse in a language she can follow. I want to laugh at this, but I wail more. I tell them I’m dying. They reassure me that I most certainly am not dying, in confident tones of someone who has witnessed this a million times. I must push now and the doctor says she will help along. Short of cutting me open and pulling the creature out of me, I am doubtful of any help she can provide, but I comply again. I push with what little strength I have left. There’s a chorus of push push push around me. I want to tell them all to shut up because I need that last smidgen of strength to push instead of listen to them. I also want to tell them all to go to hell, but time and space have vanished – the pain is so great I wonder why I’m not dead yet. All I remember finally is a long, insides-out drawn scream, followed by instant, immense relief. The universe of pain within me dispersing in a moment.

And then a small cry. One tiny shriek, and then another.

He greets me with eyes that know everything – past, present and the future; the songs of birds and the mechanics of quanta – shadowed by a brow carrying a slight disdain for our petty affairs. That infinite wisdom of a newly born! He is beautiful, I tell him. He blinks knowingly. Several seconds pass and another blink. We observe each other for a period, marked by his viscous blinks before we must get on with our heretofore mundane existence.

In proper time, around an hour. Blissful. Golden.