EXCERPT, WHEN ELLIE WAS LITTLE: OUR LIFE IN HOLIDAYS, PUBLISHED 2011 BY NORA GLASS
Ellie’s Birthday
When Ellie was little—no, when she was still in utero—I wanted her to have her own day. She was due to be born on my birthday, but since I’d had to share mine my whole life, I didn’t want her to have to share it, too. She deserved her own.
I’d been in labor for two days by the time I was finally fully dilated. Two full days of exertion, two full days of off-again-on-again pain that made me feel like I was going to split into violent atoms, two full days of the strong conviction that I would have her before our birthday, September seventh.
Mariana, of course, didn’t see it that way. From India, after her missed flight, she’d sent more and more frantic texts from a borrowed cell phone. Wait. Hold on a little longer. If you just wait three more hours, we’ll all have the same birthday forever.
Like I could possibly slow down. I pushed harder, even though the doctor said I wasn’t supposed to. It increased stress on the baby, she said. Birth, I figured, was a big enough stress, and my pushing couldn’t possibly hurt that much. Besides, how were they going to stop me? By saying “No”? Good luck to them.
Paul said, “I’m here.”
I looked deeply into his eyes and pretended I cared.
I’m here, texted Mariana, even though she wasn’t.
The truth was, I didn’t care. It was the first and only moment in my life I didn’t need her. I didn’t need my husband. I could only hear what was inside me, the roaring ocean kicked into tsunami mode by the tiny person earthquaking inside me.
She would have her own day, I swore.
Her own day.
At eight p.m., the midwife thought she was finally coming. I agreed—I knew she was. I was wheeled into the delivery room. At nine p.m., I pushed more. I gave every ounce my body had to give, and as a mother giving birth, that was a lot. Two hours later, the epidural had worn off, and they couldn’t give me another one. They put a heating pad on my belly and I couldn’t find the words to scream that it was hurting me until I had second-degree burns. That pain didn’t matter, compared to what was happening inside me. At a quarter till midnight, the doctor talked in low tones to the nurse, and then the midwife told me that my baby was in distress.
The guilt that landed on top of me with that accusation was like nothing I’d ever felt before. My first failure as a mother, and my daughter wasn’t even breathing air outside my body yet. I didn’t want to fail her again, so quickly, by taking away the chance for her to have her very own birthday.
I grabbed the midwife’s hand—it was hard and calloused, as if in her off time she gardened without gloves. “Do it now.” I looked at the clock on the wall. Twelve more minutes. “Pull her out now. Use those forceps things.”
“We tried that, Nora.”
“If it’s surgery, can it wait? Till the day after?”
She thought I was joking, so she laughed.
Thirteen minutes later, as they prepped me for a cesarean, Ellie speeded up her entrance. Given the very last-chance go-ahead from the midwife, I pushed with my brain and heart and liver. I pushed with the strength I wouldn’t find for years, borrowing from it like it was a bank. There was nothing, no one in the whole world but me and my little girl. Mariana on my phone, Paul on my left—they both disappeared into a red twilight of background pain and noise, leaving me with no one but my Ellie, who was born one minute before midnight on September sixth, securing her very own day, all to herself.
As they caught her, suctioned her nose, made sure she had all her parts, I panted like a racehorse pushed past its limit. I wanted to say Happy birthday to my new little girl, but just like that, sixty seconds later, my daughter’s birthday was over and it was ours, mine and Mariana’s.
Paul couldn’t say anything. Not one word. He just squeezed my hand and his tears rained onto my forearm. He went up on his toes, bobbing up and down, looking for a glimpse of our daughter, who was already unhappy about her ordeal, screaming like an injured kitten.
There would be time to examine her, to check every little part, to kiss every toe, to count every whisper of birth-black hair. I wasn’t worried anymore.
“Ellie,” I said. We hadn’t decided on a name, hadn’t been able to narrow our list down. We’d hoped that when we met her, we would know. I hadn’t even properly held her yet, but I’d known her name while giving my final roar. Ellie. Strong, intelligent, willful. It hadn’t even been on our short list. I don’t think we’d ever spoken the name aloud before to each other.
“Ellie,” said Mariana, her hiccups clear even from India. “It’s perfect.”
“Ellie,” said Paul.
Then the nurse handed her to me and I was finally who I was supposed to be.