Introduction Eureka moments always strike at the oddest times. There I was, legs splayed by stirrups, privates exposed and a 6-pound, 13-ounce creature ramming its head at my cervix. A pain coursed through my body that made me pray for death. And then my husband and my obstetrician nearly came to blows.
I thought, Wouldn't this make a funny book?
Let me back up a bit: A few days before my due date, my doctor -- the one I had interviewed for the job, the one I thought understood me and my unborn child -- decided to mention that he'd be plying the Greek isles during my baby's birth. He walked me to the office of his partner, wished me luck and sailed off humming the theme from The Love Boat.
I was left facing Dr. Brock St. Claire, the substitute obstetrician, who seemed more like an actor playing a doctor than the real deal. But this was Hollywood, where even brain surgeons sneak out for auditions during lunch breaks. He shook my hand and stretched his face into a crescent-moon smile. His teeth were so white and polished they belonged behind glass, spread out on a swatch of black velvet. His skin was mahogany from too many sessions at an electric beach. His perfectly coiffed hair was just this side of a televangelist's.
This guy's going to deliver my baby? I panicked and then squinted past his head, desperately searching for diplomas and various degrees. All I discovered were headshots of actresses and models. Thanks, Brock, for catching my baby. You're the best, one read. He caught me looking and raised his eyebrows. It was as if he were saying, Oh yeah, I've seen their vaginas.
Eventually I calmed down. St. Claire may not be the Norman Rockwell-doctor I'd imagined, but if a bunch of millionaire actresses trusted him with their labor, why shouldn't I? Besides, it was too late to search for someone else.
A few days later I was in the delivery room. St. Claire barreled in and announced, "We'll have this bambino out in a few minutes." Then he imparted some medical advice. "Just keep pushing like you're taking a shit. I like to tell my patients that this is the biggest shit of their lives."
As he laughed, St. Claire checked his reflection in the mirror that had been positioned by my legs. He smiled.
"Remember, push like you're really constipated, honey."
I squeezed my husband's hand and we took long, deep breaths together. Sweat dripped down my face as the contractions tore through me. I'd been pushing for the last two hours. I wanted more drugs. I wanted to call it quits. I wanted a doctor to slice me open and pull this creature out. I wanted to die.
Then St. Claire said: "So, if it's a boy, I'll circumcise him."
I held my breath, pushed and waited. I'd heard Larry's take on circumcision so many times now I had it memorized. Our original doctor knew the deal but apparently St. Claire hadn't checked the files. During the last nine months, Larry had debated this with everyone -- friends, family, co-workers, waiters, mailmen, winos...
"No way."
Even though Larry and I didn't know our child's sex, he was convinced it was a boy. He'd been calling my swollen stomach "Johnny" for the last nine months. And he had made it clear from the moment the plus sign appeared on the EPT test that his son's foreskin would remain intact. Since Larry believed he knew more about penises than I did, he thought he should have the final say in this matter. Jeannine, my sister, had a solution. "Just have the baby circumcised and then blame it on the drugs." Gee, I really don't remember anything....
Most people quickly abandon a debate with Larry on this subject. Believe me, it's not worth it. Larry's a master at verbal sparring. I suppose most decide, "Sure, let his kid be ruined for life. Why should I care?"
St. Claire's mouth hung open. His teeth glistened under the fluorescent light. "No!!!!!!!!???? You can't be serious. Everyone gets their kid circumcised."
St. Claire was on one side of me. My husband on the other. They were like two matrons across a picket fence.
Larry gritted his teeth as he spoke. "I don't. Why mess with the manufacturer's original design?"
"Why? Because...because you don't want your son to be a freak. And you don't want your son giving women bladder infections because of all the smegma. He'll have too much smegma."
My baby hadn't even been born yet and already he was a sex machine!
"Smegma? Please." Larry ignored my contraction as he clenched his jaw. "Circumcision is no different from tattooing or body piercing. It's mutilation."
The nurse strapped an oxygen mask to my face while St. Claire swatted his hand through the air as if Larry's remarks were the dumbest things he'd ever heard. The nurse cleared her throat. "Doctor, this baby is ready to come out."
St. Claire thrust his palms out at the nurse to silence her. After all, there were more important issues at hand. "Well, I'd like to know who's going to clean the smegma."
The baby was ripping my bowels. I pushed. "It's almost there. We're at stage two," the nurse said. "Look, you can see its head."
The hairy top of my precious baby's head was showing and the doctor and my husband ignored it. Instead they glared at each other.
"Why stop at the foreskin? Why not lop off a couple of inches so his pants fit better?"
I pushed and pushed. I exhaled and inhaled. I visualized. I was on a raft -- alone -- in the ocean, floating peacefully. The cool water lapped at my legs. The sun massaged my face, my shoulders, my arms, my stomach...
St. Claire threw up his arms and guffawed. "You're circumcised, right? You know the trauma your child will go through when he sees that your penises are different?"
"You know, I was worried about that." Then Larry pretended to cup his penis as he spoke in a good ol' voice. "Lookie here, Junior, our Johnsons don't match."
St. Claire's eyes narrowed. "You laugh now. But what about the kids in the locker room? You think it will be easy for him if his penis is different from theirs? He'll be ridiculed. He'll have no friends. He'll come home from school begging you to cut his penis. What will you do then, huh? Huh?"
"I'll get him a box-cutter and a fifth of Jack Daniel's."
My ocean churned with turbulence. The raft capsized. I swallowed gallons and gallons of salt water. A shark bore through my stomach. I was dying! And they were talking about smegma. When this was over, I'd report St. Claire to the American Medical Association, or the Screen Actors Guild. I'd file for divorce. Better still, I'd kill them both.
"GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME," I barked at the doctor. I turned to my husband. "I'LL NEVER HAVE SEX WITH YOU AGAIN!!!!!!!!"
After I'd uttered this anthem for laboring moms, that eureka moment hit. I thought, This can't be an isolated incident of delivery-room hijinks. With pain at a maximum and adrenaline on overdrive, childbirth captures people at their most insane. Why not a book that takes a lighthearted look into this extraordinary event? After all, I couldn't be the only mom yelling, "I'll never have sex with you AGAIN!" Could I?
After my delivery, I recounted the story to friends. My suspicions were confirmed -- many had hilarious anecdotes to share. There's the father who missed his son's delivery so he could change into a suit and tie. The mother-in-law who grabbed the forceps and demanded that the doctor get busy. The nurse who relentlessly pitched a horror movie to a mom giving birth. And the wife about to undergo a cesarean who believed her husband was plotting her murder. As one labor nurse explained, "Women in labor get downright weird." But let's not be sexist. As another said, "The biggest laughs I've had are always at the expense of men in the delivery room. They just get so nervous."
"Tell me about when I was born." As children, it's one of the first stories we request because we're the main character. It's the first chapter of our lives and we can't get enough of it. We listen for Mommy and Daddy to fill us in, begging them to repeat parts until we have it memorized. It's family lore. I'd heard the story of my arrival so many times I'd forgotten what a wonderful anecdote it was. As my mother recounted it for the book, I realized I knew it verbatim, even though I hadn't heard it in decades.
So why not share these stories with expectant moms? After all, no one deserves a laugh more than pregnant women. They've got mood swings, hemorrhoids and an additional twenty-plus pounds to lug around. Plus everyone -- friends, relatives, strangers on the street -- feels compelled to share birthing horror stories with them. Larry and I promise that in this book there will be no sad stories or scary moments. All these stories have happy endings.
Which brings us back to my story.
Suddenly they remembered I was there. My husband squeezed my hand. "Okay, breathe, honey," he said. Yeah, as if I hadn't been doing it on my own for the last thirty years! You're worthless, I thought. I should be squatting in a field of sunflowers without any husbands, doctors or other variety of men around -- circumcised or not.
"It's almost out," the nurse yelled.
A head appeared, followed by the tiniest, pudgiest, most wrinkled hand I'd ever seen. "Looks like it's reaching for a credit card," St. Claire said.
It felt as if everything inside me was tumbling out.
"What is it? What is it?"
"You tell me," the doctor said to Larry as he yanked the baby into the room at 1:11 P.M. on September 30, 1999.
"It's a girl! It's a girl!"
Thank God. A girl! A girl with indoor plumbing. A girl who couldn't be a freak in the locker room! A girl! The doctor placed the slimy, bloody, wriggly little creature on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her naked body and Larry cut the umbilical cord. We stared at our baby and fell in love.
I had my little family; and Olivia Jeannine, her first story.
Copyright © 2002 by Irene Zutell and Larry Bleidner
Chapter 1: I Am Not Out of Control!
Ladies, t...
