Celebrating Mother

On January 5, 1988, at 4 a.m., I was minding my own business, sleeping on my side of the bed, not bothering anybody, when I felt the bed shake. I rolled to my left and saw wife Brenda sit up in the bed like Frankenstein's monster trying to get up off the monster-making table. Then she announced to nobody in particular: “I’m quitting the management job. And I want to have a baby!” “Okey-doke,” I replied as I rolled back to my usual spot.I figured Brenda was having a dream. But the next morning, she went to the hospital where she worked, then simultaneously fired herself as head nurse and hired herself on as a staffer in the hospital nursery. “I spend my whole day explaining things to grown women who come back five minutes later and ask me to explain it all over again. They call me in the middle of the night wanting to know where we keep the plastic tubing. Well, I know the hospital policies, and I can find my own dang tubing. I’m making myself an underling, and I’m staying an underling.” Brenda is a no-nonsense woman. She’s never had long red fingernails, she’s never made up her face while driving, and there’s not a high heel in the house. When Brenda and I met, she was driving a raggedy old Chevy with a bad starter. When the car wouldn’t start, she’d snatch a hammer out from under the front seat, crawl up under the car and beat the starter until it could get the flywheel going.Back in the early ’80s, Brenda and I started talking about getting married. I was sold on Brenda but not on marriage. In my years as an itinerant musician, I had seen way too many once-adorable rock ’n’ roll girlfriends turn into regular wives who nagged their men to quit the band, just so they could have things that match: all-peach curtains, all-maple bedroom furniture, red tulips lined up along the driveway like little soldiers.So I asked Brenda for just one more assurance that she wouldn’t go harpy on me. I told her if she'd change one tire on our Mercury Marquis, all by herself, I'd marry her the next Tuesday. “Why don't I just rotate all the rubber while I'm at it,” Brenda replied. She popped the trunk, snatched out the jack and the tire tool, and rotated the Marquis’ tires without breaking a sweat. If I had any doubt that I had found my life mate, that doubt left me when Brenda secured the tire-changing tools so they wouldn’t rattle around in the trunk.So, don't you know, when Brenda said she was ready to have our baby, I pulled the chocks out from under my wheels and started up the baby-making engine. Less than a month after Brenda’s 4 o’clock epiphany, she was pregnant.Nine months later, contractions hit Brenda in the middle of her shift in the hospital nursery. Brenda’s obstetrician, doctor Jennifer, took Brenda into a room and gave her a quick look-see. “You’re at about 2 centimeters,” doctor Jennifer said.“That’s nothing,” Brenda said, hitching up her pants. “I’ll finish my shift.” And she did, too. She paused every now and then to lean up against a wall and grimace through a contraction, but she spent the day before our daughter’s birthday taking care of other people’s babies. The next morning at 9 o’clock, Brenda checked into the hospital. Doctor Jennifer examined her again, said she was stuck at 2 centimeters and called it “latent labor.”Just then, I teased Doctor Jennifer about how her med-school teachers must’ve skipped over oxymorons. “You’ve seen plenty of labor,” I said. “Tell me what’s latent about it.”Brenda laughed, and her water broke.For the next twelve hours, Brenda rode the baby-birthing bed like a rodeo bull. Her nurse pals—the ones who didn’t ask for repeated explanations or the late-night location of tubing—brought out all kinds of fancy bed attachments for Brenda to push and pull on. But daughter Jess was “sunny-side up,” as they say in the birthing business, and she wouldn’t come out until they could get her turned face down.When a woman has a baby stuck in her birth canal, she’s likely to scream and cuss and make noises that would make witches cover their ears. According to Brenda, some women even curse their husbands for getting them pregnant. Brenda just grunted, squeezed my hand and tossed me her oxygen mask when she wasn’t using it.About 8:30, doctor Jennifer brought out a scalpel to use on Brenda and forceps to use on Jess. Doctor Jennifer put the forceps around Jess’ head and gave a mighty tug. Brenda and Jennifer heard a snap. That was Jess’ collarbone snapping. But Jess was out and safe.I cut the umbilical cord. I thought it would feel like spaghetti, but it was tough, like rope. I used the scissors to saw through it.After Brenda held Jess for a while, the nurses took Jess over to the exam table. She started crying hard, so I went over and rubbed her belly. She stopped crying then and didn’t cry any more that night. I climbed in the recliner, tucked Jess under my chin and we slept with Brenda in the delivery room.Now, a little more than 19 years later, I’m blessed with a no-nonsense wife and a no-nonsense daughter. Right now, either of them could fire up a tractor and plow a watermelon field. Either could whip up a fine little piece of art in the form of a photograph, a clay bowl or a nice print.And there’s still not a high heel in the house.That, by itself, is a pretty good reason to celebrate Mother’s Day.