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Veerein Sheorayan ed. Carolyn Wang
Birth
“Push!”
The scrub clad obstetrician locks eyes with me from between my legs. I can see his small breaths in the pulse of his surgical mask. Expand. Contract. (Dilate).
“Come on, you can do better than that!”
“I can’t, please, just let me…”
My pleading is cut short by a searing pain through my lower abdomen. The warm rust-smelling liquid trickles to join the pool of fluid, mucus and pre-birth beneath my torso.
Suddenly, the urge to push becomes irresistibly forceful. It’s as if my body has transcended my spirit, all sense of will taken, all attention devoted to one moment.
I push.
As I look beyond the obstetrician’s bent over shoulders, I see a million people standing between my legs, waiting expectantly, all bespectacled, avid readers. With my soft, inner parts on display I am entirely exposed, vulnerable.
What will become of me and my child?
Conception
The womb is a place of suspension. Inside its warm, amniotic depths the foetus coils in the uterus, cushioned by the placenta, shifting freely in a home without gravity. Steadily, like the passing ticks of a clock, the sound of the mother’s heartbeat marks the passing of time. Faint glugs of moving water aid the foetus’ every shift; a cocoon of white noise conceals the bustling world outside. Every cell in my body, every part of my history, everything that I am comes to this moment. I pour myself, like a torrential waterfall unleashing itself over a small urn, into the life building in my belly. Creator that I am
First Trimester
The first trimester can perhaps be likened to
being swept up in a strong ocean wave. The mind,
placid at first, stretches into the horizon,
expanding into the hidden crevices of the soul,
willing every fibre of my being to rise to the
occasion. The water becomes deeper, heavier-
I dance with Mr Darcy, console Anna Karenina,
throw parties at West Egg. Then, quite
without warning, I am at the mercy of Aunt Lydia
(I’m sorry Aunt Lydia), holding the drawing-
drawing me in with the irresistible force of
of a Lacuna Inc. memory-erasing device (why?),
preaching the words
of metamodernism – wait!
– wait! I see the wave. It curls like a damp page
over the swaying water, gathering force, speed,
coming –
coming. They’re coming, the Invisible Monsters, the
friends of the Fight Club, the cousins of Patrick
Bateman, towing that horrible Clay
towing that horrible clay-like sand. The wave
smashes through my body, filling my nostrils with
choking salt water, scraping my soft body against
the beach –
Do you feel nauseous?
I do.
Second Trimester
I am accepted into the busy schedule of a well-to-do obstetrician, who is extremely tall and thin, clean-shaven, pale (as am I), and is forever slowly “oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion”. He writes with a fountain pen engraved with the name ‘Moriarty’, occasionally pausing as he looks towards me with still, discerning, piercing eyes. Capitalism by Patrick Suskind lingers on his lapels, putting me at serious risk of expelling my lunch on his writing desk.
“The review notes will be ready in three business days. We can’t see anything that would indicate any complications – we’ll send these to be reviewed and let you know. We’ll also let you know about the money that’s involved in a formal letter. Any questions, queries, concerns?”
I reply with a fake smile and walk out of the building amidst a raging battle of anxiety and fear.
What other things do they need to check?
Why will it take three days?
Is something wrong?
That can’t be.
I’ve been doing everything they told me.
Am I doing enough?
Am I a fraud, a bare faced liar, a naïve little girl who knows nothing?
I place a hand over my belly, reminding myself that this is necessary. Like Icarus, a child might fly too high, causing their paper wings to burn amidst the blistering scrutiny of critics, but fly too low and the child will drown amidst a sea of mediocrity.
Third Trimester
In my third trimester of pregnancy, I begin to experience the fear of death.
In large part this was due to the choice remarks of my own father, dear Mr Barthes, who was rather old fashioned in his postmodernity. Aggrieved at having a bastard child in the family, he had revoked our ties. “You are an Author! Let me tell you. This child will be the death of you! Very well. You are dead to me already.” Father was right, as fathers always are. Death looms over me like Dymocks on George Street. What father chose to omit however, was the pain that comes before death.
Moriarty (my obstetrician if you didn’t catch on) is no more a doctor than he is a butcher. Observe, the feeling of knives daggers slicing piercing the flesh, cutting out the fruits of your labours the gut-wrenching room-spinning sensation of seeing a finger, a limb, a piece of placenta on the floor. [Editor note: too gory! Dial back] I can feel Imagine, ‘constructive feedback’ rising like a sceptre in my your deepest dreams, wrapping cold, clammy fingers around your throat until you awaken with a bed shaking jolt.
They tear, gouge, rend the pages apart.
Weep, when you realise the foetus was never to be as you made it, not even while it’s inside you.
Birth
“Congratulations, it’s a metafiction!” a voice announces from the cavity between my legs.
For the slightest of moments, I am given my child to hold in my arms, to feel the gravity of its presence, to bask in the pride of my achievement and the relief that pregnancy is over at last. I lay back into the plump maternity ward pillows and let myself fade, back into the world, into everything – and nothing.
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