The Weight

by Shireen Campbell

During the last few months of my first pregnancy, I obsessively watched TV shows like A Baby Story and Maternity Ward.  What these shows provided, over and over, were episodes of birth as high drama.  I found each episode compelling and intimate, yet distant, allowing me to rehearse pain without feeling it.  The television voyeurism did help prepare me for my own labor, which felt long and hard.  Yet memories of anxiety and pain soon faded, erased by the exciting outcome.   What I still remember most is not the drama of labor, but the grind of waiting for that labor to start. 

My due date had been set for January 1^st.   Despite hearing from doctors and reading in baby books that forty weeks is full-term, I believed that I’d deliver at thirty-eight weeks, before Christmas.  So hugely and peevishly pregnant, I raced through end-of-semester grading for my college classes.  Eager to help, my parents drove from Minnesota down to Charlotte, North Carolina, arriving on December 16^th.

On Monday, the 18^th, my parents and I returned from a disappointing examination that revealed no effacement and no dilation to find a crew jack-hammering the street in front of the house in preparation for sewer and sidewalk improvements.  We parked in the neighboring Baptist church parking lot and walked through the demolition zone to get home.

That week, my mother planned menus, swept, cooked, put my dishes away in the wrong cupboards, sorted donated baby clothes, and read.  Unable to work wood in his shop or run errands, my father did each day what he could—brood.  By Thursday morning, he was worried enough to urge my husband, Jeremy, to “call the city and find out what’s going on.  Eaton Road is all torn up, but nobody’s working on it.” Jeremy, who’s in information technology, muttered something about a server that he needed to check on and disappeared into the study.

“Dad, it’s only the 21st.”  As I spoke, I finished watering the Christmas tree.  Unable to stand from a squat, I scooted over to the coffee table, then used it to pull up to my knees.  The table creaked under my weight.  “They’re going to rip out the whole block, then come back to resurface and everything. We can keep parking at the church.”

My father helped me stand up.  “But what if you go into labor?”

I tried to smile reassuringly.  “I can walk that far.”

Amused, my mother looked up from the murder mystery she’d been reading.  “John, labor often progresses slowly, especially with first babies.  Rini’s right. She’ll be able to get to the car.”

He frowned.  “But what if it’s rush hour?  You’ll have to walk, and traffic out on Monroe will be impossible.”

I tried to control my tone.  “Dad, the odds are good I’ll be in labor for awhile.  We’ll get to Carolina Medical Center.  It’s only four miles away.” 

Unappeased, Dad started hanging out in the front yard in the following days and speaking to anyone wearing a hard hat.  He stopped construction trucks.  He pointed at the house.  I fumed to my mother.  Finally, I retreated to bed, devoured Harry Potter books, and whined about hemorrhoids. 

Just as the pain of labor cedes to the triumph of delivery, my memory counterbalances the difficulty of that wait with the discovery at its end.  Around 2:30 a.m. on January 10^th, I sat awkwardly on my adjustable bed, gazing at my son, Jonathan.  I was supposed to be nursing him, but not really succeeding.   (The next morning, a lactation consultant will ask “Do you mind,” then grab my breast, shape it into a point, and rub the nipple across Jonathan’s lips repeatedly.  Under such confident hands, he will latch on and have his first real meal.) 

I stared at him, tiny, so alert.  He gazed back, and I cried and smiled and snuggled him close.  We rested in scented semi-dark – roses from Jeremy, a carnation and miniature rose arrangement from my in-laws, an open Whitman’s sampler from a friend.  Except for squeaky footsteps and passing med carts, the hall was quiet.  Hi sweetheart . . . I’m your mommy.  Do you know me?  At Lamaze we’d learned that newborns know their mothers’ voices immediately, familiar from months of muffled conversations. Will I be a good mommy?  Who will you be?  Jonathan’s small face suddenly squinched, mouth opening in silent cry. Sing a lullaby, quick.  I remembered few.  “Hushabye baby?”  No, that’s dumb – what’s a cradle doing in a tree top?  And then it all falls down.  Why would anyone sing that to a baby?  But he was still squinching.

Why do birds suddenly appear
Every time you are near?
Just like me,
They long to be
Close to you.

My teary croak parodied Karen Carpenter’s effortless, doomed voice, but Jonathan's face relaxed and his eyes closed.  I continued.

That night I fell in love with my son and began to understand parenting.  Labor was hard.  Waiting to go into labor was hard.  Waiting for and with this child for the rest of my life would be harder still.   

Each evening, one parent bathes Jonathan and his little brother Alistair, while the other parent does the dishes.  I used to love bath night and loathe dish night.  Lately, I appreciate rotating between jobs.

“Mommy, it’s my turn in the front.”  Jonathan grabs my right arm.  “Mommy...”         

Alistair’s green sweatshirt is half-over his head, but I cannot pull it off with only one arm.  Breathe.  “Yes, honey, it is your turn.  Now take your clothes off and let me finish undressing your brother.” 

Jonathan releases me.  I finish pulling Alistair’s shirt off, which he finds hilarious.  As he giggles, I undo his diaper tabs.  The sodden diaper plops to the floor, and Alistair stomps in naked celebration.  From my toilet perch, I lean over and check the tub.  It’s ready—water warm, bubbly, and deep enough.

“Ok, sweetie, you’re ready to get in.”  I pick up Alistair. “NO!  I’m in the front.”  Jonathan pushes past me.  Jeans and cartoon character underwear rumple around his ankles.

“Jonathan, stop.”  I lift Alistair into the tub.  “You WILL be in the front.  But you’ve got to be undressed first.”  Why isn’t he ready yet?  

I convince a protesting Jonathan to back up so I can see the problem.  “Jonathan, you need to take your shoes off before your pants, remember?”        

“I can’t.”  Tears well in his end-of-a-long-day eyes.  “I can’t.”  He sits and extends his feet toward me.  It would be so easy to fix this.  But I can’t let myself.

“Honey, here.”  I pull his pants up so Jonathan can get a clear shot at removing the light-up tennies  “Remember, put one hand on the back of your shoe and...”

Once both children are in, I lean back, roll my head from shoulder to shoulder, page through a damp magazine.  The boys are absorbed in plastic boats and letters that stick to the tub.  I need to wash their hair, but it can wait for a few more minutes. 

Shireen Campbell lives with her husband and two children (Jonathan, age 5, and Alistair, age 3.5) in Davidson, North Carolina. She is lucky enough to be able to walk from her unfixed fixer-upper across the street to the college campus where she's an associate professor of English.  Among her favorite classes are a first-year writing class that focuses on toys, a course in young adult fiction, and a creative nonfiction workshop..