Delivery, by Emanuela Barasch Rubinstein, launches today, and her second guest post is the opening chapter; which offers the viewpoints of both the new mother and the new father:

Afterbirth

Now that it is all over—life’s first cry, the exaltations and tears of joy, the newborn baby taken to be weighed and measured, the stains of blood and amniotic fluid washed off, the narrow incision stitched, the sweat wiped from my forehead—a sigh of relief escapes me, almost against my will. In spite of the hustle and bustle, the midwives’ lively conversation, a cleaner dipping a mop in a bucket and wiping the floor over and over again, a doctor asking for a senior colleague’s advice, I feel silence enveloping me. No one is demanding that I breathe vigorously, that I strain my body to its very limit, or that I try, in vain, to stop a cry of pain. I am left alone, as if I were an old musical instrument that after much effort has made an ancient sound and now is placed back in its case.

Amir has left the delivery room to call the family and tell them that a healthy baby was born. I hear his excited, somewhat cracked voice coming from the corridor; he adopts a practical tone but is unable to conceal its trembling. The baby’s weight is almost three kilograms. When he came into this world the doctor turned him upside down and only then did he begin to cry loudly. Amir says he doesn’t know who he looks like, probably both of us—only his skin is shrivelled and wrinkled like that of an old man, maybe because he remained in the womb two weeks longer than expected, and two hours without amniotic fluid. Amir hastened to end the call and now he is phoning my parents, repeating the description of the birth, not leaving out the slightest detail. It is already a script that he has learned.

I am lying in a maternity bed: my body is clean, the incision is covered with a bandage, but I can’t move. A chill is spreading within me, like an invisible shudder, a final quiver of disfiguring pain. Something is vibrating within my feet, advancing towards the bleeding wound, passing the abdomen and going up, intermingled with rapid heartbeats, making my breathing heavy. My body is rebelling. I close my eyes, thinking: here, it is all over, the pain is gone and all that is left of it is residual bleeding; but my dizziness proves that it cannot simply be swept away in an instant. The room is clean and sterile, the strong lights are turned off, I am wrapped in a pleasant blanket, the nurse brings me water, and I hear the staff saying that the room should be vacated as another woman in labour is coming. I find it hard to grasp how the heavy burden has suddenly disappeared, and all I have is a wordless memory of pain, a sensation fierce and acute that now only stings.

Amir returns to the room, looking at me with concern. He comes to my side and begins caressing my hair. “Relax, everything went well, the baby is fine, everything is okay.” In spite of his casual tone he is looking anxiously at the lights, at a pack of towels at the side of the bed, at the syringes placed on a shiny tray; he stretches out a hand and grabs a bottle filled with pink fluid, grasping it and then putting it back on the tray; his hair, speckled with grey, is slick with sweat; his tee shirt is wrinkled and stained; he is staring at the walls like a boy who is made to spend time with a distant aunt, seeking to conceal his desire to run to the entrance, to be gone without waiting for the door to close. But he remains seated, and even tries to have a conversation.

After a couple of minutes he caresses my head again, and then says quietly, as if conveying a secret, “I’m going to see the baby.” Here, finally, a serious excuse has been found, something that would not appear as a pretext but as a valid and important reason for him to kiss me and leave the room. The way he looks at the entrance is so obvious, I’d rather he would simply say: Daphne, I can’t take this place anymore, I must get out. But he insists and lingers for a while before walking out, at first hesitantly, then with an appearance of justified decision.

A loud scream comes from the corridor: a woman shouting “I can’t take it anymore, I can’t take it anymore.” Two nurses rush into the room. They cover me and roll the bed away. “6cm dilated, the room has to be readied quickly, she’ll be in active labour soon.”

I hear them talking as they push me into another room, placing the bed next to the window before rushing to the woman who has just come in. Isolating silence fills this room, and the screams of horrid pain cannot be heard here.

*