It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast. Right? I thought so but I didn’t really remember much about my own labor, just that I went into the hospital thinking I was just getting weird floaters in my eyes and next thing I knew they were inducing me for preeclampsia, said there were no beds left since it was the only labor and delivery unit in the county, and so I was left in that triage room, the hospital noisy with sick and hurting.
For me, all I felt was that frenzy and then the epidural, so I’d never experienced nothing like this. Adela deep in her animal state, a guttural roar echoing from a part of her further than eyes or ears could reach.
The children woke screaming, the children woke eyes wide. We all crowded around Adela, where her hands and knees touched sand warmed by the fire and I didn’t know what to do. Simone did, though. Simone’s hands pressed at Adela’s low back and rocked with her. Simone called out for April’s jacket, for Crystal to go get the flashlight from her truck, for me to go sit in front of Adela’s face and talk to her.
Adela’s face was dripping in sweat and her eyes were shut, but every time she started a new roar, her eyes flashed open and she looked up at me and I swear it was the same look a predator gets before they pounce, her teeth baring.
“What do I say?” I looked to Simone, but she was busy shining the flashlight under Adela’s skirt and she just shouted, “Moan with her.”
Moan with her? I wasn’t the one giving birth. I didn’t know why I needed to play animal with her and, I had to admit, I was kind of panicking. I’d only given birth nine months before, but it felt way longer, ’cept now I could almost feel the unending pressure that felt like it was about to rip my asshole apart. How scared I was to not know what would happen next. But I couldn’t tell you if it took an hour or twenty, if it was one push or ten.
I never did what Adela was doing, never growled like an animal. Instead, I cried and asked for my grammy, even though she refused to come inside the hospital, insisted on waiting outside, just me and Jay left through the whole thing.
Adela was something else, though, like she was built for this pain, knew exactly what to do. I couldn’t just leave her alone like that, so I did what Simone said. Adela’s mouth curled open again and out came sound and so I joined her, grew louder as she did, until we were nearly screaming, and when Adela looked at me this time, I saw her eyes focus in on my mouth, like she was concentrating, using me as a conduit for her breath.
“You’re doing this,” I said. I hated when the nurses told me, “You can do this,” as though I had any choice. I didn’t want to do it, wouldn’t’ve kept going if I was given a choice, but the reality was that I was doing it, that despite how much I believed I couldn’t, I would. I did. Adela nodded, nodded, and even as the next contraction took hold of her, she didn’t stop her nodding.
“You’re doing this,” I said. And she was.