The Pioneer Woman (29 page)

A
WEEK BEFORE
my due date, Marlboro Man had to preg-test a hundred cows. Preg-testing cows, I would learn in horror that warm June morning, does not involve the cow urinating on a test stick and waiting at least three minutes to read the result. Instead, a large animal vet inserts his entire arm into a long disposable glove, then inserts the gloved arm high into the rectum of a pregnant cow until the vet's arm is no longer visible. Once his arm is deep inside the cow's nether regions, the vet can feel the size and angle of the cow's cervix and determine two things:

1. Whether or not she is pregnant.
   
2. How far along she is.
   

With this information, Marlboro Man decides whether to rebreed the nonpregnant cows, and in which pasture to place the pregnant cows; cows that became bred at the same time will stay in the same pasture so that they'll all give birth in approximately the same time frame.

Of course, I understood none of this as I watched the doctor insert the entire length of his arm into a hundred different cows' bottoms. All I knew is that he'd insert his arm, the cow would moo, he would pull out his arm, and the cow would poop. Unintentionally, each time a new cow would pass
through the chute, I'd instinctively bear down. I was just as pregnant as many of the cows. My nether regions were uncomfortable enough as it was. The thought of someone inserting their…

It was more than I probably should have signed up for that morning.

“God help me!”
I yelped as Marlboro Man and I pulled away from the working area after the last cow was tested. “What in the name of all that is holy did I just witness?”

“How'd you like that?” Marlboro Man asked, smiling a satisfied smile. He loved introducing me to new ranching activities. The more shocking I found them, the better.

“Seriously,” I mumbled, grasping my enormous belly as if to protect my baby from the reality of this bizarre, disturbing world. “That was just…that was like nothing I've ever seen before!” It made the rectal thermometer episode I'd endured many months earlier seem like a garden party.

Marlboro Man laughed and rested his hand on my knee. It stayed there the rest of the drive home.

At eleven that night, I woke up feeling strange. Marlboro Man and I had just drifted off to sleep, and my abdomen felt tight and weird. I stared at the ceiling, breathing deeply in an effort to will it away. But then I put two and two together: the whole trauma of what I'd seen earlier in the day must have finally caught up with me. In my sympathy for the preg-tested cows, I must have borne down a few too many times.

I sat up in bed. I was definitely in labor.

 

I
MMEDIATELY
, I kicked into gear and did what the plan dictated: I got out of bed and took a shower, washing every last inch of myself until I squeaked. I shaved my legs all the way up to my groin and dried my hair and curled it, and put on layers of shimmery makeup. By the time I gently tapped Marlboro Man on the shoulder and told him the news, I
looked like I was ready for a night on the town…and the contractions were intense enough to make me stop in my tracks and wait until they passed.

“What?” Marlboro Man raised his head off the pillow and looked at me, disoriented.

“I'm in labor,” I whispered. Why was I whispering?

“Seriously?” he replied, sitting up and looking at my belly, as if it would look any different.

Marlboro Man threw on his clothes and brushed his teeth, and within minutes we were in the car, driving to the hospital over sixty miles away. My labor was progressing; I could tell. I felt like something was inside my body and wanted to come out.

It was a normal sensation, given the circumstances.

 

A
N HOUR
later we were pulling into the hospital parking lot. Sparkly and shiny from my hair and makeup job, I had to stop and bend over six times between the car and the front door of the hospital. I literally couldn't take a step until each contraction ended. Within an hour after checking in, I was writhing on a hospital bed in all-encompassing pain and wishing once again that I'd gone ahead and moved to Chicago. It had become my default response when things got rough in my life: morning sickness? I should have moved to Chicago. Cow manure in my yard? Chicago would have been a better choice. Contractions less than a minute apart? Windy City, come and get me.

Finally, I reached my breaking point. It's an indescribable feeling, the throes of hard labor—that mind-numbing total body cramp whose origin you can't even begin to wrap your head around. After trying to be strong and tough in front of Marlboro Man, I finally gave up and gripped the bedsheet and clenched my teeth. I groaned and moaned and pushed the nurse button and whimpered to Marlboro Man, “I can't do this anymore.” When
the nurse came into the room moments later, I begged her to put me out of my misery. My salvation arrived five minutes later in the form of an eight-inch needle, and when the medicine hit I nearly began to cry. The relief was indescribably sweet.

I was so blissfully pain-free, I fell asleep. And when I woke up confused and disoriented an hour later, a nurse named Heidi was telling me it was time to push. Almost immediately, Dr. Oliver entered the room, fully scrubbed and wearing a mask.

“Are you ready, Mama?” Marlboro Man asked, standing near my shoulders as the nurse draped my legs and adjusted the fetal monitor, which was strapped around my middle. I felt like I'd woken up in the middle of a party. But the weirdest party ever—one where the hostess was putting my feet in stirrups.

I ordered Marlboro Man to remain north of my belly button as nurses scurried into place. I'd made it clear beforehand:
I didn't want him down there
. I wanted him to continue to get to know me the old-fashioned way—and besides, that's what we were paying the doctor for.

“Go ahead and push once for me,” Dr. Oliver said.

I did, but only hard enough to ensure that nothing accidental or embarrassing would slip out. I could think of no greater humiliation.

“Okay, that's not going to work at all,” Dr. Oliver scolded.

I pushed again.

“Ree,” Dr. Oliver said, looking up at me through the space between my legs. “You can do way better than that.”

He'd watched me grow up in the ballet company in our town. He'd watched me contort and leap and spin in everything from
The Nutcracker
to
Swan Lake
to
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. He knew I had the fortitude to will a baby from my loins.

That's when Marlboro Man grabbed my hand, as if to impart to me, his sweaty and slightly weary wife, a measure of his strength and endurance.

“Come on, honey,” he said. “You can do it.”

A few tense moments later, our baby was born.

Except it wasn't a baby boy. It was a seven-pound, twenty-one-inch baby girl.

It was the most important moment of my life.

And more ways than one, it was a pivotal moment for Marlboro Man.

I
LAY THERE,
depleted and relieved that whatever used to be in my body was now out. Marlboro Man, on the other hand, was stunned. Patting me affectionately, he stared at our newborn baby girl with a shocked expression he couldn't have hidden if he'd tried. “Congratulations,” Dr. Oliver had said moments before. “You have a daughter.”

You have a daughter.
In the previous several months of gestation, I'd been so indoctrinated with the notion that we were having a boy, it hadn't even occurred to me that things might go the other way. I couldn't even imagine Marlboro Man's surprise.

“Good job, Mama,” he said, leaning down and kissing my forehead. The nurses immediately wrapped our little one in a white blanket and set her on my chest. Plop. There she was. Lying on top of me. Writhing and looking pink and pitiful and about as precious as anything I'd ever seen. Marlboro Man grasped my hand, squeezing it softly. “Wow,” he said, almost in a whisper. He stared and stared. We were totally quiet. We could hardly move.

My throat began to tighten as I realized what had just happened. The being that had been growing inside of my abdomen, that had tapped and kicked and pummeled me in the ribs and bladder during those final weeks, that had brought me heartburn and exhaustion and weeks of debilitating nausea, was now lying on my chest, looking around this strange new world
in which she found herself. It was the most surreal moment of my life—more surreal than any moment of surprise during my courtship with Marlboro Man, the father of this new human that had just arrived on the scene and changed absolutely everything. She had arms and legs and a nose and a tongue, which she slowly thrust in and out of her tiny mouth in an effort to familiarize herself with the sensation of air. She was a person—alive and moving around in a real world. I realized that tears were rolling down my face. I hadn't even noticed I was crying.

 

W
HEN MARLBORO
Man and I had gotten married, he had his sights set on starting a family
sooner
rather than
later
. I was slightly more ambivalent; I knew having a child would probably wind up somewhere in our future, but I hadn't exactly been chomping at the bit to procreate. When I'd “turned up” pregnant five weeks after our wedding day, no one had been more excited than Marlboro Man.

That's partly because he just
knew
we'd be having a son. Aside from the occasional visit from a female cousin, Marlboro Man and his brothers hadn't had much contact with or interaction with girls. His mother had been a positive female role model, but most all of the day-to-day ranching activity involved nothing but men.

I could feel his disappointment hovering thick in the air. Though he made every effort to appear supportive and pleased, I could tell that Marlboro Man was utterly shocked, just as anyone would be whose life had just—in one, single, amniotic fluid-drenched instant—metamorphosed into something completely different from what he had always imagined it would be.

Once the baby was assessed and declared healthy and the nurses went about the unenviable job of cleaning up my nether regions, Marlboro Man picked up the phone to call his parents, who had coincidentally taken a two-day trip, not expecting I'd go into labor when I did.

“It's a girl,” I heard Marlboro Man tell his mom. Nurses dabbed my bottom with gauze. “Ree did great,” he continued. “The baby's fine.” The doctor opened up a suture kit.

I took a few deep breaths, staring at the baby's striped knit cap, placed on her head by one of the nurses. Marlboro Man spoke quietly to his parents, answering their questions and providing them with details about when we'd gone to the hospital and how it had all gone. I drifted in and out of listening to him talk; I was too busy trying to assimilate what had just happened to me. Then, toward the end of the conversation, I heard him ask his mother a question.

“So…what do you do with girls?” he said.

His mother knew the answer, of course. Though she hadn't had any girls of her own, she herself had been the oldest child of a rancher and had grown up being her father's primary ranch hand throughout her childhood years. She knew better than anyone “what you do with girls” on a working ranch.

“The same thing you do with boys,” she answered.

I chuckled softly when Marlboro Man relayed his mom's sentiments. For the first time in our relationship, he was the one in a foreign land.

 

A
LITTLE WHILE
later, I found myself waking, groggy and nauseated, from a deep sleep in a regular hospital room. Disoriented, I glanced around the room and finally found Marlboro Man, who was quietly parked in a comfortable chair in the corner and holding our flannel-wrapped little bundle. He was wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt—the best he could manage the night before, when my unexpected labor had yanked us both out of bed. His muscular arms holding our baby were almost too much for me to take. Just as I sat up to take a closer look, the baby stretched out her two arms and made a series of tiny gurgling sounds. I was not in Kansas anymore.

“Hey, Mama,” Marlboro Man said, smiling.

I smiled back, unable to take my eyes off the sight in front of me. Those Hallmark commercials weren't kidding. A man holding a newborn baby was a beautiful thing to behold. My stomach growled, then gurgled.

“Wow,” I said. “I'm really hungry.” And just like that, out of the blue, it hit me. I glanced around the room frantically, knowing I was seconds away from losing it. Fortunately, I found a clean trash can parked right beside my bed and grabbed it just in time to absolutely fill it with projectile vomit. It was chartreuse and abundant, and splattered the lily white trash bag like a Pollock canvas. I snorted and sniffed and coughed. I felt like a demon.

I could hear Marlboro Man getting up. “You okay?” he said, clearly not knowing what the heck he was supposed to be doing. I grabbed a wad of Kleenexes and wiped the corners of my mouth. As mortified as I was, my stomach felt a hundred times better.

A nurse entered the room just after I set down the trash can. “How you doing?” she asked with a sweet smile. Little did she know the fun she'd just missed.

“Uh…I,” I began.

“She just threw up,” Marlboro Man, still holding the baby, reported. I got a whiff of the vomit and hoped Marlboro Man wasn't smelling it, too.

“Oh, you did?” the nurturing nurse said, looking around at the unmistakable evidence.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think it was just all the medication. I feel better now.” I hiccupped loudly and rested my head back on the pillow.

The nurse did some cleaning up and whisked away the trash can as I lay there staring at the ceiling. I felt better physically, but it shocked me just how far I'd fallen. Months earlier, I couldn't even bear the thought of sweating in front of Marlboro Man. Now I'd hurled a bright greenish yellow liquid all over the room as he held our peacefully sleeping baby. I could see the last of my dignity swirl down a big, nasty drain on the floor.

Before I could change the subject and begin talking to Marlboro Man about the weather, the chipper nurse returned to the room and sat down on the end of my bed with a clipboard.

“I need to check your vitals, hon,” she explained. It had been several hours since I'd given birth. I guess this was the routine.

She felt my pulse, palpated my legs, asked if I had pain anywhere, and lightly pressed on my abdomen, the whole while making sure I wasn't showing signs of a blockage or a blood clot, a fever or a hemorrhage. I stared dreamily at Marlboro Man, who gave me a wink or two. I hoped he would, in time, be able to see past the vomit.

The nurse then began a battery of questions.

“So, no pain?”

“Nope. I feel fine now.”

“No chills?”

“Not at all.”

“Have you been able to pass gas in the past few hours?”

*Insert awkward ten-second pause*

I couldn't have heard her right. “What?” I asked, staring at her.

“Have you been able to pass gas lately?”

*Another awkward pause*

What kind of question is this?
“Wait…,” I asked.
“What?”

“Sweetie, have you been able to pass gas today?”

I stared at her blankly. “I don't…”

“…Pass gas? You? Today?” She was unrelenting. I continued my blank, desperate stare, completely incapable of registering her question.

Throughout the entire course of my pregnancy, I'd gone to great lengths to maintain a certain level of glamour and vanity. Even during labor, I'd attempted to remain the ever-fresh and vibrant new wife, going so far as to reapply tinted lip balm before the epidural so I wouldn't look pale. I'd also restrained myself during the pushing stage, afraid I'd lose control of my bowels, which would have been the kiss of death upon my
pride and my marriage; I would have had to just divorce my husband and start fresh with someone else.

I had never once so much as passed gas in front of Marlboro Man. As far as he was concerned, my body lacked this function altogether.

So why was I being forced to answer these questions now? I hadn't done anything wrong.

“I'm sorry…,” I stammered. “I don't understand the question….”

The nurse began again, seemingly unconcerned with my lack of comprehension skills. “Have you…”

Marlboro Man, lovingly holding our baby and patiently listening all this time from across the room, couldn't take it anymore. “Honey! She wants to know if you've been able to
fart
today!”

The nurse giggled. “Okay, well maybe that's a little more clear.”

I pulled the covers over my head.

I was not having this discussion.

 

L
ATE THAT
evening, I begged Marlboro Man to go back to the ranch to sleep. We'd had visits from my dad, our grandmothers, my best friend, Becky, and Mike. My mom had even peeked her head in once she'd determined the coast was clear, and I'd been poked and prodded and checked by nurses all day long. I felt tired and gross, not having been given permission to shower yet, and I didn't want him to sleep on a hard cot in the room. Plus, I couldn't risk being asked about my bodily functions in his presence again. “Go home and get some sleep,” I said. “I'll still be here in the morning.”

He didn't put up much of a fight. He was exhausted; I could tell. I was exhausted, too—but I was supposed to be. I needed Marlboro Man to stay strong.

“Good night, Mama,” he said, kissing my head. I loved this new
“Mama” thing. He kissed our baby on the cheek. She grunted and twisted. I moved my face to hers and inhaled. Why hadn't anyone ever told me babies smelled so good?

After Marlboro Man left, the room was beautifully quiet. I nestled more deeply into the surprisingly comfortable hospital bed and cradled the baby like a football, unbuttoning my peach pajama top and hooking her on for the tenth time in the past several hours. She'd struggled on the previous tries, but this time—almost in an effort to comfort me now that Marlboro Man had left—she opened her tiny mouth and latched on. I closed my eyes, laid my head back on the pillow, and savored my first moments alone with my child.

Seconds later, the door to my room opened and my brother-in-law, Tim, walked in. He'd just finished working a huge load of cattle. Marlboro Man would have been, too, if I hadn't gone into labor the night before.

“Hey!” Tim said enthusiastically. “How's it going?”

I yanked the bedsheet far enough north to cover the baby's head and my exposed breast; as much as I loved my new brother-in-law, I just couldn't see myself being that open with him. He caught on immediately.

“Oops—did I come at a bad time?” Tim asked, a deer caught in the headlights.

“You just missed your brother,” I said. The baby's lips fell off my nipple and she rooted around and tried to find it again. I tried to act like nothing was happening under the covers.

“No kidding?” Tim asked, looking nervously around the room. “Oh, I should have called first.”

“Come on in,” I said, sitting up in the bed as tall as I could. The epidural had definitely worn off. My bottom was beginning to throb.

“How's the baby?” he asked, wanting to look but unsure if he should look in her direction.

“She's great,” I answered, pulling the little one out from under the covers. I prayed I could get my nipple quickly tucked away without incident.

Tim smiled as he regarded his new niece. “She's so cute,” he said tenderly. “Can I hold her?” He reached out his arms like a child wanting to hold a puppy.

“Sure,” I said, handing her over, my bottom stinging by now. All I could think about was getting in the shower and spraying it with the nozzle I'd noticed earlier in the day when the nurse escorted me to the bathroom. I'd started obsessing over it, in fact. The nozzle was all I could think about.

Tim seemed as surprised at the baby's gender as his brother had been. “I was shocked when I heard!” he said, looking at me with a smile. I laughed, imagining what Marlboro Man's dad might be thinking. That the first grandchild in such a male-dominated ranching family turned out to be a girl was becoming more humorous to me each minute. This was going to be an adventure.

As Tim held the baby, I rested my head back on the pillow; I was too tired to hold it together much longer.

“How's she eating?” Tim asked. A funny question. He seemed genuinely interested.

“Pretty good,” I said, squirming a little bit at the subject matter. “I think she'll catch on after a while.”

Catch on? Latch on? I was so confused.

“You're feeding her your own milk, right?” Tim asked awkwardly.