“How are you coming?”
“Hurts. Get that thing to stay in place, I think it will help.”
“Okay.” He rummaged in the tool chest, ransacked the cabinets. He was bouncing around the room like a pinball, but nothing. Nothing but a roll of duct tape. “Shit. Okay, tell me where you want it.” He held up the roll for her to see.
“Damn,” she said. “Okay, worth a try. Put it about here,” and she held her legs up in the air, feet only a bit farther toward the end of the bed than her bottom. He put the bedstead in that position and then duct-taped both ends to the frame in a crisscross pattern, many turns on each side.
Right about when he was finishing that, and beginning to think the room was far too warm, another contraction clutched her. It had been about four minutes. Now she had something to brace her feet against, but it was only braced at the fulcrum, down below her mattress; he had to hold the upper part in position against her pushing. He couldn’t do it; not even close. The duct tape held but twisted, and she pushed the top bar over no matter how hard he threw his body against it. “Damn,” he said. “You’re strong.”
She shook her head, red-faced and sweating. “The contractions are strong. Can you see any changes? Any progress.”
He gulped and took a look between her legs, put the blanket back over her. “Dilated,” he said, guessing. He hadn’t seen any rubber gloves in the cabinets inside the closet, and didn’t want to put his fingers inside her anyway; he had no idea what to do, how or what to measure, he could only mess things up. They were stuck with nature alone.
“I don’t think my feet up helps,” she said. “I want to try pulling on the bar with my arms instead.”
This meant the pressure on the bar would come from the opposite side, so before her next contraction Fred duct-taped the bar in long loops to the foot of her bed. Then she had another contraction, and pulled herself up on the bar.
“Damn!” she exclaimed when she was done. Then she was laughing and crying at the same time, puffing in and out as if after some desperate sprint.
“Was that better?” Fred asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I should squat,” she said. “I read that’s one way to do it. Squat in the shower or something.”
“Would that work in this gravity? Wouldn’t you just stand up when the contractions hit?”
“Maybe so.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to stand anyway.”
“I could try to help you keep your balance.”
“No.”
“If you were crouching I could hold you down.”
“No you couldn’t.” Then her eyes squeezed shut white and she began again, pulling herself up from the bar trembling over her.
“Big breaths,” he said. “Push on the out breath, relax when you breathe in. Push hard.” In fact he had no idea. He didn’t even know what he was saying.
This time the new arrangement allowed her to push in a way she seemed to want. Her thighs banded and trembled. Her body arched until only the back of her head was touching the bed. In the midst of her huffing and puffing she yelped, and Fred jumped in surprise, flying backward in a slow arc to the floor. He returned to her side, held her shoulders. Lunar g was not enough for her now. She was clenching her fists, they were as white as her eyelids. It was good he wasn’t holding hands with her at that moment, his hand would have been crushed for sure.
When that contraction relented, she relaxed back onto the bed, sucked air until she had caught her breath. He went to the sink and wet a towel with water, returned to wipe her forehead and smooth her hair back. Her skin was glowing and she radiated heat. “That felt a little better,” she said. “Any progress?”
He checked her out again, and there between her legs was a round opening several centimeters across, filled with black—the top of the baby’s head, its hair wet.
“Crown!” he said, understanding the use of the word in this context for the first time. “I see the crown!”
“Good. It’s coming out headfirst.”
“Yes.”
After that things went in a blur. Her contractions hit one after the next, and the idea that this was some kind of athletic event she couldn’t refuse began to look wrong; this had gone beyond athletics into something pitiless and superhuman. He risked holding her hand, took the pain and squeezed back as hard as he could. He held his breath, he counted, he said things that neither of them heard. He was completely there and completely not there; he was so terrified he felt nothing. She cried out during each contraction now, which was obviously easier than trying not to cry out. All of it was so involuntary. After each push her baby’s head was farther out of her, and eventually he had to lift it up and move it farther down the towel he had placed under her hips. That slight flare of her hips was going to save them. Clearly there should have been a basin there or something. He was feeling more and more dissociated; things were happening too fast because they were going too slowly; things were both completely bizarre and completely natural at the same time. Despite his fear, it resembled that time with the dog under the couch. It was simply the way things worked, the way they all came into the world. His electrified calm was as bizarre as all the rest of it—not dissociation, instead an unknown new feeling, filling him right to the skin. They were animals. Mammals in action. There wasn’t enough gravity. He drank a cup of water, got her to take a sip when she was in a break.
When the child’s red and black head was entirely outside her, he said, “Okay, the head’s out, the hard part’s over, let’s get the shoulders out on this next push and you’ll be done,” and he wanted to help somehow with this, but still didn’t know what to do; it wasn’t a situation where you could just pull on the kid’s head, at least so it seemed to him. Some waiting was involved, which was hard, but necks were fragile. He was holding his breath, and when he noticed that and tried to breathe, he could hardly do it. Was this joy or terror? Could there be some previously unsuspected combination of the two?
She nodded to show she had heard him, eyes clenched shut, breathing hard in and out. Gasping. Her face was red, her hair drenched with sweat, body everywhere glowing and sweaty. Gasping to catch her breath!
Then the next push shoved the kid’s shoulders out of her, and he had to move fast to pull off the added bed frame to make room for it. Then he flew to the sink, crashing into it and hurting his forearm again. Ignoring that, he washed his hands and went back and pulled the baby out gently by its head and shoulders, making use of Qi’s next contraction, twisting the babe a bit to the side so that out it slid, coated with bloody fluids, it was a naked little mess, it wasn’t breathing, its umbilical cord still ran blackly up into Qi.
“Okay it’s out,” he exclaimed, and turned it over on the bloody wet towel. “She’s out. It’s a girl.”
Immediately Qi leaned forward and took up the girl into her arms. “Cut the umbilical cord about five centimeters away from her,” Qi said urgently, staring at her child. “Tie it off first before you cut it, tie each side of the cut spot. Quick as you can.”
“Tie it with what!” Fred exclaimed.
“Anything! Hurry!”
He hopped over and got the duct tape and scissors, nearly flying past the cabinet into the closet. He got back to her and swiftly pulled and cut lengths of duct tape, then wrapped them tight around the slippery umbilical cord, which was a reddish black and twisty like a braided rope under a sheath. He cut between the wraps. It bled when he cut it but only a little. Then Qi sat back with the baby in her arms, one hand behind the babe’s head, another under her back. The baby was even more red-faced than Qi—eyes open, brown eyes, looking astounded. A grin split his face, though he was still terrified.
Qi sat back a little; Fred stuffed a pillow from the other bed behind her head and shoulders. She gave the baby a quick hard squeeze and shake. Nothing. Qi turned her head downward and shook her again, scooped a finger in her mouth, slapped her lightly on the butt. The baby suddenly snorted and then choked and breathed out then in, and then wailed. Qi and Fred shared a quick relieved look. Now all three of them were astounded. Qi folded her in her arms and held her. For a second they were in a space together, all three weeping or laughing, it was hard to tell; it was a moment. The two women were a mess. Then suddenly Qi bent forward again, in the grip of another contraction. “Just keep holding her,” Fred said, and attended to the dark goop coming out of her, putting down another towel under her bottom. “It’s the placenta I guess.”