Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Write About the Body in Extremity

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

Perhaps you know the feeling of adult hands upon your slight, pre-school shoulders, firmly guiding you in the direction of the recess line or nap room. The weight of their palms is clear and determined. Not violent, but not negotiable.

Such is the feeling, at age 30, as the contractions build, and my labor is imminent. Yes, there is the tightening of muscles tensing my pelvis like a balloon being blown to capacity. But there is also something else. It is not physical, more like a chemical omnipresence, and it courses through my veins to reach my brain with a inarguable decree. You are no longer in charge here. This is bigger than you. Invisible hands are upon me, moving me along a course with no turnaround.

Eventually, there is an irrepressible urge to push. Everything in this vessel of sinew, bones, and nerves, wants to move this baby down, and out. I give it everything I’ve got with each instruction from my mid-wife. My face and head pulse with the strain of bearing down from crown to root. My partner behind me, wraps his arms around to grip my knees, pulling me open to the sear of nearly splitting.

In the low-lit room, a headlamp illuminates the gateway, ever-widening, but not yet allowing full passage. I’m told to reach my fingers down to feel the real-live, actual baby hair of my child, pressed wet into the world, his head still stuck inside. Our first touch. He is so close, but not coming.

The mid-wife grabs my hazy gaze with alerting eyes. “I want you to call on whatever it is you need to call upon to help you deliver this baby. This is it. He needs to come out now…You can do this.”

courtesy of Chuck Heston
courtesy of Chuck Heston
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Write About a Time You Broke the Rules

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

I can only guess what the EMT must be thinking as he tries to wheel the gurney through our flimsy screen room, the one we attached to our school bus, up on blocks, where we live. One scan of the scene and he sees the abandoned kiddy pool by the bed, the water puddles on the floor, the melted candles, barely flickering on the sills.

This looks like a complete fiasco. I am exposed in shame. Embarrassed, but cannot waste energy on explaining. I imagine how I must appear. Big, vulnerable, pregnant, and not doing it right. He has come to my rescue, in this home birth gone wrong.

The man in uniform is swift, yet calm, loading me on to the gurney. I want to say so much, but this labor has reduced me to a surrender deeper than any let-go I have ever fallen to. I am silent, my damp body bulging out from beneath the twisted sarong, with which I’ve tried to wrap myself.

My midwife had pulled her pants off hours ago, as she helped me through contractions, kneeling by the warm pool where I labored. When the sirens approached, she stepped into her jeans, gathered her things, and readied to face a hospital, bright lights, and questions. A rescue from an ambulance was not what she had wanted. I had failed her, just as I was failing my baby.

Humbled on the gurney, I wheel past the remains of a wrinkled, puddled room, the morning sun rising to reveal the night’s pained attempts, and my utter inability.

I’d read the pregnancy books, taken the expensive supplements. Gone to the pre-natal yoga and birthing classes. I’d envisioned the most loving welcome into the world for my son. Candlelight and a warm-water delivery, with a seasoned mid-wife, in the comfort of my own (albeit alternative) home. Organic cotton diapers were ready, and three months of maternity leave lined up. This debacle had started with a plan. Really.

At the time, in Hawaii, birthing at home was technically illegal. As for technicalities, living in a school bus probably was, too. I’d broken the rules, but this wasn’t a mere, fineable infraction. It was a potentially lethal mishap, shaming me with every contraction the ambulance driver asked me to ignore.

“Wait until we get to the hospital.”

2016-04-04_ambulance

 

FOOTNOTE:  I will say that my healthy son was born (no C-section), not long after my arrival to the hospital. Though I had hoped for soft candles, and only my partner and midwife, circumstances went differently. Jeb came into the world with plenty of fanfare. Bells and whistles, bright lights, and at least ten people looking on. He’s a thriving 12 year old now…

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Behind the Moon

Gone are the days, sixteen years ago, when I was with Jeb’s dad (no Jeb yet). I had a couple hundred dollars in the bank, living in a school bus up on blocks, wondering how far beyond 300,000 miles my Subaru would go.

Now I’m 42 in a Prius (color, “Pure White”). My husband (not Jeb’s dad) and I bought it used, but it looks brand new. It hovers low to the ground, a suburban vehicle, not built for off-road, barely skirting speed bumps.

In the back seat is a twelve-year-old and a Labrador. My pre-teen vies for use of ear buds with his smart phone, but I’ve established a no-headset rule in the car.

I am grateful for a reliable, gas-efficient automobile, a healthy, insightful son, and a sweet-natured, four-legged companion. Each of these is a wish, made realized. But maneuvering us all in the driver’s seat of this scene, I feel as though I’ve been cast in a movie. Given props and a costume for a role I’ve yet to fully embody. Who is this middle-aged lady in the station wagon, with a budding teen, and a dog?

What happened to Jeb’s booster seat, and me, passing back pieces of organic rice cakes, while we both sang, enthusiastically, to the music I loved, and he liked too? When Matt Costa’s “Behind the Moon,” was Jeb’s all-time favorite, and we could crank it over cruddy speakers on the short car ride to pre-school.

Now here I come
To dance around the sun
I’ve been oh so blue
Stuck behind the moon
Now let me in
Back where we begin
And let me hold you like the way
I used to do

Now it’s requests for bad pop music on the radio, or desired ear bud solitude, blocking the chance for conversation.

“Mom, I can still hear you with them in, I just like listening to my music.”

Now let me hold you like the way…

I used to do
I used to do

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