Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 3 Comments

Write With Repetition

~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

Maybe I didn’t expect enough.

Was it thirty years of varied letdowns that had me figuring I’d always, eventually, be abandoned?

Dad backing down the driveway in a, rattling, empty station wagon, leaving to live in a new home. My first-love-turned-fiancé, cheating on me with the bookstore clerk at the Fresno Mall. Years of subsequent relationships with boys-becoming-men, all who loved me, but just couldn’t commit.

Maybe.

Maybe it was that time in my twenties, in India, when the local boy delivered a handwritten note from my traveling companions, explaining that they were sorry. They had tried to find me. They had decided to move on. Taking a train to a new city. They hoped I’d have a great rest of my trip.

Maybe.

Maybe anyone would have had some trouble, if their water broke at 1am, and the father of their child just wouldn’t wake up. Maybe it’s true that a woman would feel a bit unnerved, when her boyfriend finally did awake to call the midwife, only to discover that she was on another island, 200 miles away, and the first flight back wouldn’t be for another five hours. Maybe all of that would be enough to make a mother hesitate and stall, contractions or not. Maybe nothing in that moment made it feel safe to birth a baby. Maybe that’s why when the midwife finally did arrive, there was trouble pushing.

Maybe I didn’t expect enough. Just assumed that no one would really be there. That everyone made promises, but none were ever kept. Maybe I figured I was always alone, so I surrounded myself with people who were only halfway in.

Maybe.

But no expectations means no disappointment, and I’d had disappointment plenty. And every time I was let down, I landed in that same, mildewed, stinking, shame-filled spot. Just certain that their leaving was confirmation: something must be wrong with me.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 3 Comments

Re-write An Existing Piece

courtesy of Hubble ESA
courtesy of Hubble ESA

~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

PROMPT INSTRUCTIONS: Re-write a piece that needs clearer purpose. Identify in one sentence the goal of the essay, then advance that purpose.

 

One sentence: Convey the sense of abandonment felt during a child-birth experience and the subsequent feelings of failure and self-doubt that arise as a result. (Note: Sally is the midwife)

 

Sally moves her face back to mine with a look that solemnly conveys, either get this child out, right now at home, or we’re going to the hospital.

I am not religious, but I believe myself to be spiritual. In this moment, however, the delineation between the two is meaningless. Religious or spiritual, it matters not. Life and death weigh upon me, and I call upon every deity, avatar and saint that I can conjure: God, Goddess, All that Is, Jesus, Buddha, Mother Mary, Meher Baba, Mary Magdalene, Infinity…please help me birth this baby. Please offer up your divine powers to help me get this child out.

There has never been a moment when my prayers have mattered more. Yet, as I hear my inner pleas to every figurehead I can imagine, all requests fall flat. It’s as though my words are rote recitations, no substance. I flail to feel some kind of connection to these supreme beings. In the flickers of candlelight, the thumb-tacked, wise-eyed photos of a few, gaze upon me from a nearby wall. All seems a mockery, two-dimensional, paper-thin. I fumble at the door of distant acquaintances, wondering if they ever really lived there.

I am stunned to silence, falling. Fast and certainly, I am encompassed by a void of black nothingness, infinite in its depth, indifferent to my plight. There is no ground in this abyss. Any thought, any semblance of a foothold to secure me, quickly evaporates into empty space. At the time when I need Grace most, I am free-falling into darkness.

If God exists, but is not here with me, than I must be doing something fundamentally wrong. Sally says I’m not pushing correctly, and it seems even my prayers are failing. My utter inability could mean death. I flounder in defeat as the next contraction builds.

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…