![]() Having just given birth, I felt omnipotent. One of us just happened to be naked and bleeding, immediately postpartum. She handed me a towel, and I remember commiserating, trying to comfort her about her unfortunate relationship with her family, as though we were two cool girls hanging out in the bathroom at a party. ![]() The midwife perched on the sink and told me a story about her estranged sister. I showered in a state of trembling, happy shock. My husband lay in bed with our new son on his chest. We wept with joy, held him, kissed him, named him. Minutes later, with a great and unbridled roar, I delivered my son into bathwater. It was another three hours before she arrived. The midwife sounded annoyed, vaguely put-upon. ![]() From inside the grip of what turned out to be very active labour, I managed to flat-out demand that she join us, speaking at the phone while the doulka held it to my ear. She told us it was “probably” early labour. Throughout, my husband and doula repeatedly called and texted the midwife, whom we had found privately. Frankly, it felt like staring death in the face, by which I mean an altogether normal and intense physiological process that has nothing to do with the ordinariness of daily life. Two weeks later, I gave birth at home, after a 13-hour posterior, or back-to-back, labour, which the long-practising, well-respected midwife did not bother to attend. I entertained a parade of well-meaning relatives and friends in increasingly wild pain. ![]()
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