I WAS WOKEN LATER BY intense stomach cramps.
“Merde!” I said in a low voice. “Shit, damn, shit! It can’t be.”
I couldn’t be 100 percent sure that what I was experiencing was a contraction, but it hurt like hell until suddenly it didn’t, and then the feeling returned with a vengeance. I tried to remember the interval times that the midwife had given us in our birth preparation classes but my mind had gone completely blank. I pulled out my phone to google them.
Clotilde must have heard me groaning; she came out to the living room to check if I was OK.
“I think I might be in labor,” I said, panicked and disheartened. I should have been telling Serge.
“Merde! What do I do?” she asked. She sat on the edge of her foldout couch where I lay sprawled. She rubbed my leg tentatively. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Neither have I,” I said, managing a rather pathetic laugh. “But it might not be the real deal. That’s why I’m timing.”
“Timing what?” she asked.
“Contractions,” I said, showing her my phone. “I’m just waiting to see if they intensify. They shouldn’t. It’s too early. I’m not due for weeks.”
“Should I call Serge?” she asked.
“Not yet, I don’t want to worry him unnecessarily.”
“Right. Then what should I do? Rub your back?” she asked.
“I’m OK for now, but perhaps I should contact the hospital just in case.”
“Which hospital?” she asked.
The cramps started again, quite intensely, and stole my concentration.
“Sorry,” I said, after what felt like many minutes but according to my app was only sixty seconds. “What was the question?”
“Which hospital should I call?” Clotilde was holding her phone and waiting patiently.
“It’s in Chinon,” I said.
“If you’re in labor, you probably aren’t going to make it home to Chinon,” she said seriously.
“But I have to. They have my file.”
“Leave it to me,” she said.
As I slipped into another haze of painful cramps, I heard Clotilde speaking with the hospital in Chinon and asking them about real labor versus fake labor. She was cool-headed, stopping the conversation only to ask me the timing of my current contractions before relaying them to the person on the other end of the line. A look of concern slowly came over her face before she asked which hospital she should call in Paris. I started to worry. Oh God, this is it, I thought. I’ve ruined everything by running off to Paris. I was angry with myself, but there wasn’t any time to dwell on it.
“Get your things ready,” Clotilde said after hanging up. “It sounds like you might be having this baby tonight.”
I groaned.
“Another contraction?” she asked.
“No, I’ve just really messed everything up with Serge.”
“No time to worry about that now,” she said in an effort to comfort me. “Let’s head to the hospital and get you checked out. You can call him on the way.”
I grabbed my handbag.
“I’m ready.”
“Right. I forgot you don’t have any of your things.”
She ordered an Uber and then ran into her room and threw some clothes and toiletries into a bag. Shortly after, we were zipping through the empty streets of Paris. It was eerily peaceful in the early hours, and I found myself appreciating the city in its pre-dawn state despite worrying about everything that was about to happen.
“Serge, it’s me,” I said.
“Ella, are you OK? What’s going on?” he asked, sleepily.
“I don’t want you to worry,” I said, realizing as I did that these words tend to immediately instill some sort of concern. “But,” I continued quickly, “I’m just off to the hospital for a quick check.”
“You’re what!?” he yelled, obviously very awake now.
“I’ve been having some contractions. They might blow over, but Clotilde was worried,” I said, giving her an apologetic look. “She’s forcing me to go in.”
“Should I come now? Which hospital are you going to?” he asked.
I was on the verge of another contraction and didn’t want him to hear the strain in my voice.
“Don’t worry, Serge. I’ll call you back when I know more,” I said.
“I’ll wait by the phone,” he replied. “Do I need to call Michel to help me collect our car from the train station and to look after things on the farm?” He sounded about as anxious as I felt.
“I’ll let you know.”
We walked into the labor and delivery ward, and it was strangely quiet. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but from all the hospital dramas I’d watched on TV, I think I’d imagined seeing a woman giving birth in a stairwell while hundreds of people were piled into any available space following a volcano eruption or a bridge collapse or some other unlikely natural phenomenon that was both dramatic and involved a sudden influx of unwell people.
It seemed like I was the only patient bothering to have a baby that night.
We walked up to the reception desk and I suddenly lost all my French words. I panicked, mouth agape, trying to figure out how to say, “I think I’m in labor.” Thankfully, Clotilde stepped in and did the explaining. She ran the receptionist through the fact that I was visiting from the country and had been directed here by my doctor in Chinon.
The receptionist asked Clotilde if she was my partner and Clotilde nodded. “It’s the only way they’d let me in with you,” she whispered afterward.
We were sent up to the delivery floor so I could be checked out. As I lay on the bed, I relaxed somewhat, despite having faced a barrage of questions and an internal exam; I knew that I was in good hands.
“Well, you’re certainly in labor,” a midwife said in French after my waters broke.
I breathed a quick sigh of relief that I hadn’t just wet myself.
“When did you say you were due?” she asked.
“Not for another few weeks.”
“Well, you’re quite dilated already. Four fingers. We’ll get you hooked up to the heart rate monitor and make sure the baby is OK. Then we’ll get you the epidural.”
All notions of a natural birth had drifted out the window with each contraction that I’d already endured. The thought of things getting worse had sealed the deal for pain management in my mind.
“Parfait,” I told the midwife, suddenly appreciating the French love of medicalized births.
Clotilde and the midwife talked for a few more minutes while I suffered another mind-melting contraction. I wriggled aimlessly, trying to find some relief, listening to Clotilde ask something about how long we had left. Then the midwife was gone.
“Is everything OK?” I asked Clotilde when the wave of pain had passed.
“Just great, Ella. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’m just going to pop outside and give Serge a quick call. Probably best that he sets off now. I’m guessing he won’t want to miss the show,” she said with a wink.
It suddenly dawned on me that I was going to be leaving Paris with a baby, that I was only hours away from meeting my baby. I started to panic. What if Serge is still angry with me? What if he’s just waiting until the baby is born to break it all off? What if, once again, I’ve ruined—
Another contraction put a sharp halt to any more open-ended questions. I focused on my breathing while praying that the epidural wasn’t far off.
Minutes passed, and outside it started to rain. I wondered if it was a bad omen. It’d been raining when Paul told me he was leaving. My mind wandered back to that night back in Australia, the night I’d thought I would start my family with him. Looking around the French hospital room, I suddenly felt very alone.
Thankfully, Clotilde reappeared before I spiraled too far into a pit of anxiety, and told me that Serge was on the way. I wanted to confirm how long he would take to drive to Paris, but the midwife bustled in and told me it was time to head to the delivery room. I was about to tell her she was mistaken, that we needed to wait for my actual partner. But Clotilde was gathering up her bag and nodding. Oh God, I thought. Here we go!
The windowless delivery room felt cold. It was bigger than I had imagined and was filled with medical equipment. It was a daunting space. A small crib sat in the corner of the room, symbolizing both an end and a beginning. Every emotion I was feeling was amplified. I wished Serge could be by my side.
The midwife held me still while the epidural was administered and things calmed down slightly. I rested and waited for Serge, praying that he’d arrive in time. I was beginning to get the urge to push, but I resisted as long as possible.
And then the midwife told me it was time.
When I was pregnant, I’d tried to imagine what labor would feel like, but even in my most vivid imagination I hadn’t expected it to be so wildly painful. Thank God our memories are flawed and we can forget pain, because what followed over the next hour or so does not bear remembering. And, if it weren’t for the end result, would never bear repeating.