Talking About My Baby

Dan’s eyes had followed Tara’s—then drifted to her ass. “In that case, I better go, too, to oversee this delivery.”

“My mother will have this labor and delivery well under control.”

“But I love to watch you in action.”

Isaac’s throat knotted. His brother’s girlfriend of five years had moved out last winter. Still, the word “unprofessional” came to mind.

She invited it She can deal with it.

Yet the situation violated some sanctity of mother and child—woman and child. Tara held that infant like it was her own. Checking the baby’s face, tucking the blanket around her, her own eyes so involved in the child. Vulnerable.

“You know, I’m hungry,” she murmured. “I think I’ll get something to eat.” She started in Isaac’s direction, toward the cafeteria, then tossed a glance at his brother. “Join me?”

A wolf smile creased Dan’s face. “I think I can spare the time.”

They like each other. Fine. Isaac was glad to write her off.

Then she said, “And you?”

“Sure.” So much for writing her off, Isaac.

Now, Dan was looking him up and down. “Damn, you’re tall.”

They loaded their trays scantily, no one genuinely hungry, and found a table at the side of the room. Realizing they’d forgotten napkins, Isaac went after them, and Dan smiled at Tara over a cup of coffee. “You know and I know that you’re really trying to keep me out of the delivery room.”

“The birthing suite.” Tara tried some iceberg lettuce, the hospital’s finest. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You’re going to fail. You know your problem, Tara? And I mean you and—” with his fingers, he indicated quotation marks “—‘midwives’ like you. Everything is black and white.”

As her jaw dropped, Isaac returned to the table. When he sat down, his leg touched hers, and they both scooted back their chairs.

“In your eyes,” Dan continued, “all obstetricians are bad, and we all want to burn you alive. This isn’t the Dark Ages. You’re the ones who want to stay in the dark. Why won’t you let us guide you instead? What gets you so riled up about technology?”

Tara felt sweat droplets gathering on her forehead. Birth was sacred. What could she say about a roomful of people staring at the Broncos instead of a woman having a baby right before their eyes? How could she make Daniel McCrea, M.D., see the difference between a vibrant, powerful woman, laboring beautifully in the peace of her own home, and a woman on an epidural, plodding indifferently through the birth of her child? These were the images she saw. And others—from her time in a Chilean hospital. In Chile, like the U.S., traditional midwifery was all but destroyed. It needed a comeback.

But all she said was, “Because technology, in my experience, leads to unnecessary cesarean sections.” Not to mention that you can’t catch a baby without causing genital mutilation.

Well, okay, that was putting it strongly; everyone had to do episiotomies in certain circumstances. But every time, Dan?

Isaac sipped his coffee, a Quaker silence keeping him out of the fray. He pictured births in Rwanda. Went far away, into himself. No, think about something else. Mice. When it turned cold, they’d flocked inside, and the local vet had given him two homeless cats. But there were too many mice for his cats to kill. He needed exterminators.

“Do you know that some women prefer C-sections? And some women prefer painless births.”

Try vacuuming once in a while, Isaac. If the mice have nothing to eat... Right. Orkin. Pest control. That was the answer.

Tara wanted to scream. Dan was right. And probably some women had great memories of the baby arriving at halftime, and who was she to say that wasn’t best? Hey, the Broncos were great. Besides, how many times had Francesca and Ivy reminded her not to judge one birth experience over another? Again and again, they’d said, It’s not your birth, Tara.

Oh, she hated hospitals almost as much as jails—and for similar reasons. “I acknowledge the necessity for some cesareans, and I support the right of women who want painless births to have them, Dr. McCrea. But I also support the right of women who want homebirths to have homebirths.”

“Don’t get me started.” With an uneasy glance at Isaac, Dan changed the subject. “Tell me about this little tyke. You seem more suited to motherhood than the role of crusader. Especially, since you’re still not legal.”

Dan McCrea’s eyes gleamed, and Tara knew it was all about power, about establishing power over her. Good luck. Dan McCrea wasn’t scary, and she would stall him here in this cafeteria as long as she could and count on his wanting to get some sleep before office hours tomorrow.

Homebirth. Isaac had tired of the company before his coffee cooled to drinkable. He got up. “I’ll see you later.”

Both seemed surprised.

But he’d barely left the table before his brother said, “You know, Tara, there’s such a thing as being too natural. Too earthy. Too Eastern. Taoist, Zen, whatever you are. Ultimately, too folksy and backward. You’re all of the above.”

Isaac shook his head as he left the cafeteria. Homebirth. Have at her, Dan.

HE LEFT! DAN McCREA finally left.

After forty-five minutes of innuendo, a litany of the latest peaks he’d bagged, and a genuine invitation to dinner—no chance—he finally said, “Well, Tara, till next time,” and departed...for the hospital doors.

Folksy and backward. She’d thought it was a compliment before he said that.

Waving at Pilar Garcia, a labor and delivery nurse, who had just filled a tray, Tara rose to speak to her old friend.

Pilar glanced at Laura, then toward the doors. “Not a new romance?”

“No. I was trying to keep Millie Rand from an unnecessary C-section. An epidural, anyway. How’s she doing?”

“Just fine.” Pilar’s expression was mildly disapproving. Of Tara’s methods? Again, her eyes drifted to the baby, almost as though she knew the state of Tara’s womb.

Tara thought deliberately of other things.

There were so many Dan McCreas in the world, she was used to meeting them on their own terms, flirting right back or treating them like flies. But Ivy had told her several times that she was courting trouble.

Pilar’s response made her feel worse things—that she’d teased Dan and somehow let down every woman at the hospital. She wondered how Isaac had reacted to her performance with his brother, if he saw her as Dan did—that she viewed things as “black and white.” That she was a hotheaded “crusader” for a trivial cause?

Damn it, it wasn’t a trivial cause, and she’d been trying to do the right thing.

“Okay,” she told Laura as she carried the baby toward the maternity unit, “so maybe I’m a little folksy and backward. I can live with that.”

DAN McCREA HAD BEATEN her to the labor and delivery suite, and he and the anesthesiologist were busy trying to talk Millie Rand into an epidural. “You know, I just think you’ll be more comfortable if you try the epidural, Millie. Maybe dilate faster.”

Tara wanted to step in, to say, This woman wants a natural childbirth. No drugs, no epidural, Too black and white for you, Dr. McCrea?

Francesca said, for perhaps the tenth time, “My client has expressed her desire for natural childbirth.”

“Francesca, what if I can’t do it? I never have before.”

This was Millie Rand’s third child; the other two were staying with a friend. Her husband had gone to childbirth classes with her. Compared to what Tara had seen daily in Sagrado, this birth promised to be a piece of cake. If the boys would just get out of the room.

Millie’s adrenaline must be pumping now. Who could have a baby with someone terrifying her? And all this chitchat is stimulating her neocortex, just when she needs one of the older parts of her brain to take over. Time to get primal. Why hadn’t she had this conversation with Dan when she had the chance? As her buddy Star in Sagrado always said, Don’t fight—engage.

Millie’s husband put in, “Millie, I know what you’ve been talking about since you knew you were pregnant, and an epidural wasn’t it.”