My Life Would Suck Without You

Ugly Betty

"What might we do during first stage labor?"

Jai and Ariana were sitting, uncomfortably, on the floor along with four other couples in the community room of the local YMCA. Of course, everything was uncomfortable at seven months pregnant.

Jai nudged Ariana and motioned for her to lean over so he could whisper in her ear. "Didn't she ask the same question last week?" She nodded and shrugged.

"Deep breathing?", came a cautious answer from one of the other expectant mothers.

"Yes, that's a good idea", Emily, the English childbirth instructor, nodded enthusiastically, in her distinctly British way.

"Go for a walk?"

"Another good idea."

"A hot drink?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely, a hot drink. Good one." Emily smiled encouragingly.

"Watch ... television?"

"Yeeesss, we might well watch television."

"Read a book?"

"Absolutely. Good idea."

"Umm, excuse me", Ariana leaned forward and Emily turned toward her. "I'm a little confused. Are you asking what we might do during first stage labor to alleviate the pain or distract ourselves or are you just asking what we might do to pass the time?"

"Just what we might do", she said happily.

At which point, Jai snorted, indicating an impending attack of giggles and Ariana sat back in amazement. It was like asking what might we do on a Sunday morning ... the list could go on forever ... and this one did. In fact, it managed to take up the rest of the class. The childbirth class wasn't exactly what she was expecting. She hadn't had huge expectations, but she thought she'd learn what her choices were; be able to make decisions, based on those choices; and know what to expect. So far, she hadn't learned anything that she hadn't already picked up from books. Except she'd learned that should she decide to have an epidural or a Cesarean, she was a very bad person and would be sent straight to hell.

Last week Emily regaled them with scary tales concerning epidurals. "There have been cases", she said in a hushed voice, "of the epidural going", her voice dropped to a whisper, "... wrong."

A sharp intake of breath echoed around the room.

Emily looked at each of them, in turn, making sure she had everyone's attention before continuing with her horror story. "I know of a woman who had an epidural and it", pause for dramatic effect, "went up."

"What do you mean?", someone asked.

"I mean she had no feeling from the waist up, but felt everything from the waist ... down."

Everyone gasped in horror, except for Ariana. She rolled her eyes at Jai and wondered if she could seriously endure another few weeks of pretending that she, too, was going for a natural birth with only humming and breathing to take away the pain. Little did they know, she'd been considering an elective Cesarean. And they'd never know, if she wanted to get out of here alive.

Her main reason for coming to this class was to meet other couples in the neighborhood and having children at the same time. Although she was being very snobby now. She just didn't seem to have anything in common with any of these women. The other women were sweet enough and therefore, Ariana really had absolutely nothing in common with them. Not that it really mattered anyway, because she was going right back to work as soon as the baby was born.

Ariana's idea of hell was sitting around a table at the corner Starbucks with four other women, all of them whipping their boobs out to sooth their screaming infants, sharing their birth stories and talking about babies because that's all they had in common, but the loneliness was so overwhelming that this was better than nothing.