Cries of Penance (28 page)

I remember yet another option presented at the Primal Birth Center, an underwater birth. I was so moved by the video we were shown, the baby moving effortlessly from the womb into the world. I want to try it. I start to run water into the tub. “Auntie Ce is going to climb into the tub. I think the water wil be helpful since I don’t have any grown-ups here to help me.”

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I can’t worry about the repercussions now. The boys are insistent on coming out. I test the water, making sure it is a comfortable lukewarm. Pul ing the caftan over my head, I have a flash of embarrassment as I step into the tub but realize the children aren’t reacting to my nudity. They are young. Very young. Maybe they haven’t been taught false modesty yet. I careful y lower myself into the water, knowing I’ve made the right decision as soon as I settle. My entire body relaxes. I keep the water running until it covers my bel y and breasts.

The water seems to intensify the contractions, but I accept the pain as it moves through my body. I put the children to work. “Olympia, I need you to get the bed ready for me. Add extra blankets. I want you to bring some extra towels in there too. I’m going to need to wrap the babies in something to keep them warm.”

She starts to leave the room, anxious to help but I stop her. “Take Atso. She can help carry towels.”

“Hektor, I need you to find a pair of shoelaces. Take Nikkos with you.”

Excited to be helping, al of the children hurry from the room. I sigh, relieved to have a private moment. I take the time to examine myself, pushing two fingers into my vagina I try to gauge how dilated I am. It seems like an impossible task until a contraction pushes against my fingers and I realize I am feeling the top of one of the baby’s head. I bend my knees to lift my hips, which is made easier in the water. Relaxing against the back of the tub, I float in the water. The baby’s head presses against my fingers as I gently push. The contraction seems to carry the baby’s head through the birthing canal. I’m stretching, I can feel my labia pul ed taut. I breath in, breath out. The baby crowns.

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Olympia returns with Atso and stops in her tracks, watching with awe.

I breathe in and out, feeling the contraction move my baby forward. Feeling with my fingers, I push against my stretched labia and feel the moment the head slides free. I breathe a sigh of relief, but know I’m nowhere close to done.

I can’t believe how calm I am, how relaxed. I slide my hand under the baby’s face, feeling the miracle of his transition from the world within my womb to the one outside. I’m glad I chose the water. It seems less jarring—for him and for me.

I push gently, feeling my baby’s neck and shoulders slowly slide out. I grip him under his arms and the rest of the body slithers free quickly. I’m so surprised, al I can do is stare at him under the water, but then he opens his eyes and I pul him onto my stomach, cradling him close. He blinks, looking at me, and I remember I’m supposed to be checking his airway. Even though I can tel he’s breathing, growing pinker, I use a hand towel to wipe his face. He doesn’t like the roughness of the cloth and starts to cry. It’s such a smal sound, not a big throaty cry at al , which worries me, but as his body grows a deeper shade of pink from fingers to toes, I know he’s going to be al right.

I hold him against my chest, tears streaming down my face. God, oh God, thank you. I suddenly realize he’s stil attached to me by his umbilical cord and the cord is stil attached to the placenta. I remember something about not pul ing the cord tight, to let it stay loose, but I have another baby that needs to come out.

I might not have thought this through completely.

A pain hits that is worse than al the previous ones. “God!”

Pain, not the urge to push. Just pain, wrapping around me, shooting through me.

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“God!” I scream.

Hektor comes to the door and seeing the bloody water, he starts to cry. He wasn’t present for the gentle beauty of my first baby’s birth. “Auntie Ce?”

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” I try to convince him, I try to convince myself. Shit, oh shit! The last thing I wanted was to scare the children. “Olympia, I need you to get into the tub with me.”

I make room for her between my legs and she climbs in. She is stil wearing her clothes, shorts and a t-shirt. “Sit down, I’m going to hand you the baby to hold. Keep his head supported above the water.” I hand her the baby, and she cradles him close to her chest. “See the cord attaching me to the baby? It has to stay loose, so stay close to me.”

Another pain hits and I hold in the scream, breathing through it. I push without the urge to do so and press high on the top of my bel y, because it seems like the right thing to do, and then final y, with the next contraction there is the urge to push. I push and push and push.

Again. Push. Push. Push. I feel between my legs, expecting to feel the baby crown but instead realize a foot has pushed out of my body. “Oh God, please let this baby come out. Please.”

Fighting panic, I move to a squat in the water. Isn’t that what the facilitator told us to do in the event of a breech? Why didn’t I pay closer at ention?

Puuuushhhh!

Final y, there is a stretching sensation and I reach down, feeling both of the baby’s legs present. I pul gently, feeling his torso and the umbilical cord. It isn’t around his neck. Slowly and easily, I push. The baby’s body coming out isn’t 264

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nearly as dramatic the second time around, but it is a relief. A miracle as I hold his ankles and catch his body underwater. Pul ing him to the surface, I wipe my second son’s face free of mucus and am rewarded with a lusty wail. “I know you didn’t want to come out.”

Nestling him close, I hold him against my chest as I lower myself back into the water. I breathe through the contractions, which seem much weaker but manage to clear out the placenta in a gush of water and blood. I worry about the kids seeing the water turn red with blood and goo but there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.

I count heads, Olympia, Nikkos and Atso are awe struck. Hektor is hidden behind the door.

“Do you have the shoelaces?”

Hektor comes into view and hands me the shoelaces with a shaking hand.

“I’m okay, sweetheart, but I need your help.”

I never knew smal children could look so relieved.

“Hektor? There is a pair of scissors in the kitchen. I want you to bring them to me. Remember how we carry scissors safely?” He nods and hurries into the kitchen. I cal after him. “Don’t run.”

I cover myself up as much as I can with a towel while I wait for him to bring me the scissors. I’m forget ing something. I don’t want to cut the umbilical cord.

I’m nervous. I don’t want to do it wrong. I try to remember everything I ever heard at the Primal Birth Center about an emergency birth and remember where to tie the laces, when to tie the laces, and when to cut.

Hektor returns with the scissors.

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Should I wash the shoelaces first?

Should I boil them?

I suddenly remember that the umbilical cord has to stop pulsing and I make sure that it has before tying it into segments. Nervously, I take a deep breath and cut, not thinking, just doing it, fast, before I change my mind. Hektor watches, seeming to hold his breath. I cut the second cord.

Fuck, I should have boiled the laces . I close my eyes, say a prayer and hope for the best. I remember seeing some antibacterial gel and iodine in the pantry and hope that sanitizing after the fact is better than not sanitizing at al . What did women do before modern medicine? Garrett’s voice in my head provides the answer. They died of infection. Their babies died of infection.

I hold my second born son to my breast, remembering that nursing slows bleeding in the mother and provides important antibodies to the infant. It is harder than I think it should be getting my nipple into his mouth. I never thought of my nipples being huge before, but his mouth is so smal .

“What are we going to cal him?” Cross-legged, Olympia sits as close to me as she can, her newborn brother held gently. Hektor, Nikkos, and Atso line up against the side of the tub, watching the baby nurse.

I shrug. We haven’t discussed names. “I don’t know.”

“A baby needs a name,” Hektor says wisely.

I nod, they do need names; I’m just not up to naming them. With the rush of adrenaline and endorphins fading, I’m left shaking and wrung out. I need to get us al out of the water and dried off.

I wait for Baby Boy Number Two to stop sucking and wrap him in a towel.

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“Hold him?” I ask Hektor.

Hektor comes closer, and I hand him the baby. Smiling, a look of pure pride on his face, he holds him close.

I take Baby Boy Number One from Olympia and al ow him to float in the warm water as he passes from her to me. I suppose it’s normal to be so exhausted, isn’t it? Leaning back against the tub, I close my eyes and, bringing my firstborn son to my breast, help him to start nursing. “Go ahead and climb out, darling. Dry off, change your clothes. I’m going to need you to hold the baby again.”

Olympia does as she’s told, hurrying from the room. She returns half-dried but in fresh, dry clothes.

I jerk awake, a baby stil in my arms, four children sitting on the bathroom floor, watching and waiting. Waiting for what seems like the next question I need to answer. I appear to be al right, the babies are okay. We can’t stay in the bathroom al day. I smile at Olympia, trying to be reassuring. “Get a dry towel and you can take this one from me.”

She grabs a towel from the pile and holds out her arms. I hand her my son, and she bundles him tightly.

With her holding Baby Boy Number One and Hektor holding Baby Boy Number Two, I clamor out of the tub. It saps the remaining strength I have. “Can you take the babies into the bedroom and wait for me?”

With the two older children busy, I take a minute to pee, check my bleeding, and clean up a little more. I put a folded hand towel between my legs until I can figure out an appropriate substitution for a menstrual pad and pul the caftan back on. By the time I have scooped the placenta into a plastic trash bag and drained 267

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the tub, the thought of walking al the way into the bedroom is more than I want to consider, so I don’t think about it. I force myself into the bedroom, Nikkos and Atso fol owing behind me like little ducklings—if little ducklings could suck their thumbs.

After climbing into the bed and covering up, I hold out my arms for my newborns and cradle them into the V formed between my thighs. I know they aren’t capable of rol ing yet but it seems like a safe zone as long as I can keep the toddlers on either side of me. How did I know they’d want in bed with me? I get Nikkos tucked in on my left and Atso tucked in on my right. They both huddle as close to me as they can. It is almost suffocating, but I don’t push them away.

After al they’ve been through I understand their need to crowd as close to me as possible.

“Okay, we need a job list.”

Hektor and Olympia perk up excitedly.

“Hektor, I need you to go in the kitchen and careful y pour me a glass of juice.

Olympia, I want you to go into the living room and bring in the bag of new baby clothes.”

God, I’m exhausted .

Olympia returns with the bag and helps me find the soft, knit newborn caps. I put one each baby’s head. A smart girl she also brought me two disposable diapers—Atso’s. They’re huge but cutting them down to size, I make them work, swaddling the babies. I dress them in the long-sleeved sleep sacks that looked so tiny in the store, but which swal ow them up. They both sleep through the diapering and dressing, their birth was hard work for al of us.

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Olympia climbs onto the foot of the bed and sits between my ankles, watching the newborns intently. Hektor returns with a glass of juice and I happily take it, drinking it down in two swal ows. When I hand him the glass back I ask him to bring me another. I also ask him to bring me my purse, which I know has some acetaminophen inside. He returns with both and I happily swal ow four pil s and drink the second glass of juice.

As an afterthought, I dig a marker out of my bag and write a one and a two on the heel of the appropriate babies’ foot. Even though I have the presence of mind right this second to know which was born first, I can’t guarantee myself I’l remember when I wake up.

“Can you close the front door and lock it?”

“I already did, Auntie Ce.”

“Good boy, Hektor.”

I watch him climb up onto the foot of the bed to sit with Olympia and know that fighting sleep is going to be impossible. I tel them, “No one gets out of this bed until I wake up, understood?”

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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

John Lennon

No guard stands outside of Garrett’s door, which makes me nervous. Why hasn’t Garrett just walked away? I could be walking into a trap. No one retires from this business. No one. Weapon ready, I slide the electronic key and step inside fast.

“It’s about bloody time.”

As my eyes adjust to the lack of light, I find Garrett sitting in the corner.

“Where the fuck have you been? Where’s Celia and the children? And why am I being held prisoner?”

I put my fingers to my lips, a gesture for him to be quiet. His room has been bugged by the Guardians, I have no doubt about that. My concern is who else might be listening. I motion for him to come to me as I say loudly into the room,

“Al of your questions are justified, and I promise I’l answer al of them in time.”

He crosses his arms stubbornly and doesn’t move from his seat, and I don’t turn on the lights.

Taking a butterfly knife from my pocket I cut the tracking chip out of the back of my neck and toss it onto the bed. Going into the bathroom I grab a washcloth and hold it to the wound while I clean my knife. I want a shower, desperately.