Joy

         “Well?” It was two days before Halloween, 2002. I sat on the toilet lid in the ramshackle bathroom of my boyfriend’s rundown old house. Towels littered the threadbare carpet that adorned the creaky plywood floor, a tribute to the number of people that managed to call the place home. On the cracked ceramic sink next to me was a synthetic bar of chemicals that would reveal my destiny. One line meant no, and I could go on with my life as planned. Two lines meant yes, and my life would change forever. I covered my eyes, my heart thudding in my ears. I was truly uncertain which I wanted.

         I shoved the sleeves of my sweatshirt up my arms and tucked them into my armpits. Droplets of sweat ran down the sides of my face as would a family of mice fleeing an approaching cat. My hot flashes were increasing daily in number and severity. Since I was far too young to consider menopause, my best friend was certain I was pregnant. She was with me that day, patiently seated on the side of the bathtub, the torn and mildewed shower curtain flirting with her as the warm air from the furnace blasted into the small room.

         I could hear the aged floorboards groan as she stood to observe the plastic stick on which I had deposited my waters ten minutes before. I heard the cardboard box tap against the sink as she compared the images before her. At last, she ripped my hands away from my eyes and flashed the results in front of me with an excited grin. Whether I liked it or not, Corey was on his way.

         I did not feel the emotions that I was told most women feel with their first pregnancy. I hated being pregnant. Further, I hated everyone around me expecting me to be smiling from ear to ear all the time. From the moment of conception, I found it nearly impossible to be comfortably cool, and therefore nearly impossible to be pleasant. The excitement of those around me was little more than annoying. I had come to terms with the fact that I was eventually going to give birth, but my discomfort made it difficult for me to be thrilled about it. I found myself leaving the house in the shortest of shorts, spaghetti-strapped tank tops, and stringy flip-flops, still too warm for my comfort.

         The seasons drug their feet like a toddler forced to leave the playground on the first warm spring day after a long, frozen winter. Summer was especially resistant, and especially hot. My plus-sized maternity clothing tightened around me until I could barely breathe. I tugged incessantly at the waistband of my shorts, trying desperately to loosen it. One night, I snuck into the family restroom at the amusement park where my then husband worked and completely disrobed. I gawked at my enormous belly in the mirror. Feeling the tautness again, and not thinking, I reached to yank at the waistband. There was no waistband. My skin had reached its maximum elasticity. I sank onto the toilet in disgust.

         The growing child inside poked at the tightly stretched skin. I was fascinated and irritated at the same time to see the imprints of fully formed elbows, knees, and heels as I sat on park benches with little to do but watch my belly move. Most mothers, I have been told, are thoroughly overjoyed at this prospect. I felt a combination of awe, revulsion, and pain, since the skin had already expanded as far as it could go. It reminded me of a film I saw once, where some aliens had kidnapped a boy from a field to experiment on. In the spaceship, he, along with others, was encased in some sort of pliable substance that prevented his escape. Poor baby!

         I attended my family reunion on my due date, the last Sunday in July, fully expecting to rush to the hospital before the end of the day. I forced myself to be agreeable and smile sweetly when the extended relatives questioned, “Didn’t you have that baby yet?” I did not go to the hospital that day. I did not go any day that week. Disappointment was an understatement. I complained incessantly, spending the days sprawled in a recliner in front of the air conditioner. A brutal nine days later, I was at last summoned to the hospital before dawn in order to coax the little one out.

         I am convinced that my hatred of pregnancy had induced my body to keep me that way indefinitely. After thirteen tedious hours of waiting, pumped full of a variety of labor-inducing pharmaceuticals via clear plastic tubing and a fat needle that invaded my tender wrist vein, nothing had happened. The muscle spasms ripped through my abdomen like samurai swords in battle, but they did nothing to open the door through which my infant boy could escape. Attached to a number of monitors with cords that scraped and irritated the delicate exit, I was forbidden to do more than lie still and groan in agony. As the day waned, the obstetrician surveyed the scene thoughtfully, and then instructed a nurse to prepare the operating room. They would simply have to remove the little fellow by force.

         At 8:46pm on August 5, 2003, Corey made his debut in the world. As fate would have it, I was blissfully unconscious due to a faulty epidural and subsequent general anesthesia. It was the first time in ten months I had been comfortable. Half an hour later, I floated out of the soft blackness to the sound of the nurse calling my name. I opened my eyes wide as I tried to remember where I was. “He’s a beautiful baby boy,” someone said. The pain remained at bay as I drowsily told his name to no one in particular: the name his father had picked out. It was a name that we had argued endlessly about, only because I wanted to be the one who chose the name for the child I carried inside my body for such a long time. Corey had been the name of my husband’s best friend who passed away tragically two years before. In the end, I gave in. As I considered the name in my woozy mind, the nurse placed a rolled up blanket in the crook of my arm.

         I turned my cloudy head to see that the rolled up blanket had a face. At the top of the face was a bit of chopped stocking with a blue ribbon tied around one end that served as a hat. The little face, itself, was wrinkled and pink, and a few wisps of dark brown hair peeked from under the makeshift hat. It looked no happier than I felt, having been compulsorily removed from the leisure of the blackness. The miniature mouth turned down in a frown; the tiny eyes scrunched into a squint. I felt bruised and assaulted as I continued to drift into consciousness. It appeared that the little face felt the same.

         As I returned to the room in which I had spent most of the day, the little face began to shriek; my head began to throb. A nurse collected him and carried him to a clear bassinet a few feet away, placing him under a lamp that reminded me of the French-fry tray in the fast food restaurant where I had worked as a teenager. I faded into a fog and drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

         It was the next morning before reality settled into my fuzzy, anesthesia-soaked brain. I hauled myself into a wheelchair and took the baby from the bassinet, cradling him against my chest. “Hi,” I whispered, “I’m your mommy.” He responded with a baby sound. I removed the chopped stocking. Under it were locks of wispy dark brown hair that lengthened at the back of his little head to form a natural mullet. I kissed it and covered it with a real hat. In that moment, all was forgiven.



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