Maybe Baby

So now they tell me the pap smear wasn't "normal."

This body and me have not had the best of relationships. It has not always been our fault, my body's or mine, either. It seems, sometimes, things just are. My body and I, we were not born very strong or able compared to many people. My body and I, we were born with a predisposition to appear, visually, in a way that attracted people but that just brought us more trouble. So, my body and I, we've conspired to keep people, and living in general, away. That "way" has taken the form of food since I was eleven or so.

I've heard that toxins get trapped in our body, that heavy metals and dioxin and such store up in our bones and our fat and our organs and that, it is believed, that they don't leave us - except by a few holistic medicine folks, who believe that the right herbs and vitamins and fasting and what-have-you can make you squeaky clean again - maybe. My life has taught me that it is much the same with toxic emotions and experiences, they store up in your skin and your heart and you blood as much as your brain. Some folks believe you can purge them out and start new. I use to be a big believer in that, that you could cleanse it all out with enough talk, affirmations, rituals and positive relationship building. I am not so sure anymore.

Purging toxic emotion from my body has been a life-long project for me, one I've given a great deal of my focus to throughout my time here. I've not been particularly good at it, but that's never stopped me from working at it. I can be tenacious. I've done therapy for years on end, from age eight to age nineteen. I've read books on self-loving your physical issues away, I've read books on releasing your body shame, I've read books on how to just move on and workout. I've done hours at my altar, ritualling in hopes of finding peace in my body. All the hours combined that I've spent on the above efforts are but a bit of spit in the ocean compared to the hours I've spent talking and crying to lovers, trying to sort myself free of these toxins and convincing myself that I have, once again, found the hiding places of these poisions and purged them - only to find them with me again. I am, just now, becoming wise enough to know better.

Overall, having a body has been a hideous experience. I've always been weak and terribly unathletic desipite working out with weights, doing regular yoga and the like to overcome this truth. I spent most of my young life struggling with endometeriosis, a painful and debilitating reproductive condition. Like all female bodies, my body has absorbed more than its share of judgement, objectification and ridicule. My body has had the ill-luck to attract inappropriate looks and touches from men I should have been able to trust and there has been a sexual assult or two for good measure. My main consolation in this body has been sex and that certainly hasn't come without its uglinesses, either. I don't say this all to complain, at least, I don't think I do. I say it to be plain, to be clear with myself and say what I don't usually get the chance to say.

How many times does a person need to cry over a trust broken, a physical trespass, a need for love denied? Up until this very recent moment, I always thought that very time I was crying was the last time, each time I thought to myself, "there, I have finally cried enough. Now I will be clean."

I approached pregnancy with such hope and trepidation. Finally, here, my body and I were embarking on something beautiful together that we could handle. We'd done serious pain together before, we could handle that, we weren't even afraid of that - not my body and I. Nothing about that part of becoming a mother could be more than we could take, my body and I had such pride in our self-knowledge. For once, all our past experience of suffering together was useful - we knew we had nothing to fear. Sure, it would be hard, but we'd been purified of our fear of such things in many years of pain's fire - here we were tempered, strong, unbreakable. Finally, all we had been through together, this body and me, would be a gift.

Rekindled in me as this child grew in my belly was a wonder that I lost so young I don't remember having it, a delicate breathlessness as my body unfolded in a whole new way. No one who spent time around me while I was pregnant would know this, save for my husband. I carefully guarded this gossamere wonder with a venere of blase. I was flip about my pregnancy to family, friends and co-workers. I made jokes about the ungainly changes it caused in my form, the nauseous mornings and the strechmarks. I bitched, I moaned. I put on the whole routine of what I thought others would expect to hear from me so they wouldn't find out about this other-me that was filling with tiny bits of sparkle and glitter that might yet prove to be a joy in my body. I refered to my prenant form only to mock it and then acted like I was much too busy with my job and other concerns to give it another moment's notice.

What I didn't ever say: I checked every day in the mirror for that first hint of fuller belly curve that meant my body was holding a baby within it. I couldn't really believe it was happening to me, that something so wonderful, so awe-inspiring, could be happening in this body - in this body! As soon as my belly did begin to portrude just a bit more than usual I complained about it, about how bloated I supposedly looked, as loudly as I could to keep myself from pirouetting like a little girl and saying, "look at my belly! Look! Look! Look!" It was like putting on my prettiest Christmas dress as a child times 100. This was happening. My body and I, we were doing something beautiful. If you've had a child grow in your body then maybe you know what I mean. No lover's kiss or compliment had ever made me feel as womanly and lovely as I felt when I wore a knit shirt streched over my growing moon-tummy.

I made plans and became attached to them despite all cautions I was given. I found a way to have the birth at home despite laws against it, because it was what I wanted. There would be a pool full of warm water to move in while my body surged, there would be music, there would be lovely women I trusted to labor with me. I demanded that my husband throw away his modesty in front of others and be shirtless throughout so I could have his skin against me, to heighten the intimacy. I barred everyone who I didn't trust utterly from coming near the birth or our new family for at least a week after the birth. I set bounderies, something I'd never had the guts to do on my body's behalf before. No one was coming near me or this baby who didn't understand the wild, divine beauty of what was going to be happening to my body and me.

I wanted it to work so badly. I really don't know how to put to words how hard I tried, how I held on and held on, wanting not to lose faith in this one lovely thing my body and I had done together. Surely we deserved this, this one lovely birth. All those women who had talked to me about how challenging and profound and earth-shakingly beautiful it all was - surely my body and I deserved as much, just this once. Being a girl could be a triumph, just this once, surely, please, couldn't it? I held on and held on, I tried so very earnestly and hard. Just this once, it would be right with my body, it would. Any hour now this baby would come and I would see just how right it all had been, every uncertain hour of labor before.

After 24 hours, one of my midwives said to me that it was my fault. Those weren't her words, her words were something about how I was causing this to go on by holding back and being afraid, but that's what they amounted to. To heal, I need to say this to myself out loud: I was not afraid. I was brave and strong and life incarnate. I was holding back nothing. No one has ever labored with more willingness or bravery than I did those days, many have labored with as much, but none ever with more. I can only pray when I think about her words because I can find nothing in me that knows how to forgive them.

After 40 hours, they shot the painkillers into my spine and cut open my belly. Now, I said to myself, this will all be okay now, it will still be beautiful, I will will it so. Now. I heard Eli's first short squall, all I could see was the sheet they hung in front of my face, and I said, now. But they didn't show him to me, the didn't call Michael to cut the cord or see the baby. And they kept not doing so. I held on to hope like the desperate little girl I was, and they didn't call Michael to see the baby, the didn't bring him to my room. Eventually, I understood they never were going to bring him to my. Eventually. Eventually I understood that my child was holding onto life by threads as thin as my hope had become.

Body, I am sorry. I made my best go of making things better for you, for so many years I have tried to love you. We both did the best we could, its not our fault. But I have to finally admit to you and to myself that this may be as good as it gets, for whatever reason there could possibly be in the universe. Some people will be lithe and strong without effort and get to enjoy the feel of their physical power, but not you and I. Some women will get to feel their child push from their bodies with one great rush of absolute life in the face of all things denying, but not you and I. For some women, breastfeeding will be an act of transcendence, bonding and pleasure - for you it will be a plastic pump and a tingling in your ducts that only serves to make you clench and be vaugely nauseous with memories of childhood violations. I have tried, and I do not know how to make these things better for you or to hold onto any faith, now, that we can do much of anything lovely together. The toxin of it all is in our tissues, our muscles. Why else could we not do just this one thing? Why else, after all else we've been through together, could we not have the dignity and grace of that one moment?

I am hoping the biopsy comes back negative, but I can't do the dance of denial to defend us against it anymore. Bad things do happen. When it comes to you and I, it sometimes seems that is about all that ever happens, body. The test may come back positive and I can't rile myself to feel any fear about it, for some reason. I can give you only one promise - you and me, whatever the test says, we'll do this thing together, just like we always have, until the day comes that we can't anymore - whether its a few months from now or a few score of years.