Riley entered this world as violently as he left it. Neither his birth nor death were spared damage or trauma. Maybe that’s how premature death emanates, and how parenthood begins—fighting untimely demise with fury. I see my younger apparition, that mother-to-be wearing a hospital gown, pacing the rose-hued room. Or was the gown rose? Or maybe just her vision. She reminds me of a rat circling a cage, trying to escape an onslaught of searing shocks.
She stands with her tanned arms wrapped around her husband’s shoulders, letting him absorb the brunt of her extra weight. There is a lot of it. Later, he would tell her that he was worried his back would give out. She was surprised, because he gave no indication. She had always been the one with the bad back.
...Pacing the scarred hospital room floor, she breathes through the assaults of her fisted uterus, listening to her hypnobirthing doula’s guiding words like she is studying for a test. Healthy baby = A+. Through the room’s window, her dark shadow looms in the night, and time elapses like taffy as seconds bleed into minutes and minutes bleed into hours. Dialate. Dialate. Dialate, she mantras, but her body doesn’t listen.
When she thinks she can’t take anymore, the window births light and the crown of his head appears. She pushes as instructed, but her body reacts like an engine that won’t start, and she doesn’t feel the intense bowel movement sensation described in books. She feels out of sync with her body, like constipation but more painful than she could have imagined. Exhaustion floods her body. She wants to be done. She wants a glass of wine. She wants to escape, to travel out of body. She only has a few weeks to fit into her bridesmaid dress. My sister’s getting married, loops in her brain. How long would it take to recover from a C-section? She doesn’t care: “Just cut him out!”
The doctor informs her it’s too late. A vacuum is the only option. She pictures her red vacuum at home but then remembers the birthing class image of a vacuum. “First, I have to cut you a little bit,” the doctor says. She finally drags Riley from her on the third attempt. Relief enters her body like a sedative.
After they suction meconium from his lungs, she is finally able to hold her baby and sees the bruise on the side of his head from the multiple vacuum attempts. It reminds her of a bull’s eye.
Later it reminds her of his two small ruptures before the final one. His two-part circumcision. The loss of his two front teeth. His broken arm. His first AVM bleed. Then the final one that would take his life. Rupture was always coming for Riley, just as it was for all of us.
