I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 22

I was at my friend David’s house when my water broke. At first, I thought the baby had hit my bladder really hard. I waddled into the bathroom only to learn it wasn’t my bladder and silly me; I hadn’t bothered to wear a pad of any kind, so there was water everywhere. I started yelling for my friend, but it was summertime and the windows in his house were open, so he didn’t realize at first that it was me yelling for him. One of his sons mopped up the water, while I called the doctor. He told me that although labor hadn’t started, to go ahead and go to the hospital as the sac is the baby’s last defense against infection.

So, I borrowed a towel, we went to my house to grab another towel and my hospital bag, then drove to the hospital. I had my mother page Ricky to tell him what was happening.

When we arrived at the hospital, a nurse brought me a wheelchair to take me to a room. She looked at me and said, “You’re not in labor.”

I said, “How do you know?”

“When women in labor come in, they’re preoccupied with what’s going on. You’re not.”

“Oh.”

I was taken to a room and hooked up to monitors. Then I was told they could either induce labor or I could get up and walk around for 20 minutes or so in hopes of starting labor on my own. I chose to walk around. I’d walk around for 20 minutes or so, then go back to the room. A few times I started feeling like labor might start, but the moment I stopped walking, labor stopped, too. I finally said I’d like to be induced. I learned from one of the nurses that my doctor used the medication that starts labor to mimic natural labor, which was a good thing. Apparently some doctors will use it to “rocket” babies out.

While I waited for labor to get started, I dozed. It was late in the evening and I was tired. I was very glad I got some sleep while I could. When the labor really got going, it was intense. I’d had monthly cycles that were so painful it was all I could to stand up and function, so I figured labor wouldn’t be that bad. Wrong! I had back labor so bad that I felt like I had a miniature Mack truck trying to come through my spine.

My friend, David and my sister-in-law, Danice were in the labor room with me. When the pain got really bad, they’d take turns making a fist and pushing on my spine to mitigate the pain. It worked for a time and I was grateful for their efforts while it worked. When it stopped working, I asked for pain killers. They told me I wasn’t dilated enough, but they could give me something called, “Stadol (I have since learned that this drug is no longer used).”

It didn’t stop the pain, but it made it so that I didn’t care. I thought of it as being drunk without the hangover. The next contraction came along and I thought, “I’m in pain and I don’t care.”

Eventually I was dilated enough for the pain killers. Once that happened, everything was easy. When my son was part way out, one of the nurses said, “This baby’s so pretty, it just has to be a girl.”

I said, “No! It can’t be! It’s got to be a boy.” I couldn’t prove it as when the day for the ultra sound came that might allow me to know my child’s sex, his legs were crossed and the umbilical cord was in the way. I’d just always known. Don’t ask me how I knew, I couldn’t say, but I do know my mother had the same instinct about the three of us and she was always right. I think she even knew what the sexes were the two times Danice was pregnant. I had a girl’s name chosen just in case I was wrong, but I wasn’t.

There was one time when mother was wrong. A few months before I announced that I was pregnant, she called me at work to tell me that Mike and Danice were going to announce that they were pregnant again, around the holidays. I told her no way: that they were done.

She said, “You think so?”

I said, “I know so.” Well, right idea, wrong person. I was the one who announced a pregnancy just after the New Year that year.

Being a single mom was something I didn’t plan, but other than the fact that his father was not involved in his life, I have no regrets. Having my son, Caleb rearranged my life in ways I didn’t expect. Suddenly I went from “wild and free Mayone” to being “a single mom with her hands full taking care of her baby.”