Jori (I)
Jori Wilder was in the shower when she began to suspect she was in labor.
It didn’t happen the way it did in the movies. She didn’t suddenly cry out or double over with the pain of a contraction. There was no sudden spurt of blood or amniotic fluid. She was simply standing under the warm water, massaging her aching lower back with her soupy pouf, when it occurred to her that the crampy pains she’d attributed to lugging around her thirty-nine week belly might, in fact, be contractions.
Until that point, she had been relaxed, enjoying her shower. As she’d lathered her beach ball belly with soap, she’d thought about the baby inside, Lucy. She had always wanted a daughter, and AJ seemed thrilled they were having a girl, too. She wondered, as she often did, what Lucy would be like, whom she would take after. Would she be dark, like AJ, or fair, like Jori? Would she inherit Jori’s wit or AJ’s musical prowess? And which would she be more prone to: addiction or manic depression?
Despite how much Jori loved AJ, despite how excited she was to bring Lucy into the world, she sometimes wondered if it was a mistake to have his baby.
As a couple, they were perfect for each other. Seven years separated them in age, but one would never know it. Jori had always been worldly, and in some ways, AJ was just a big kid at heart. They had the same wicked sense of humor and knew how to make each other laugh. Both were wild, creative, and they shared an eclectic taste in music and fashion. Jori liked to think of herself as a modern-day hippie, while AJ’s style was more gothic, but together, they were free spirits, grounded to their life in Lockland only by the necessity of money and the security the shop Vintaj provided.
Their lives had calmed down significantly once they had settled there, especially since Jori had become pregnant, but she still remembered what things had been like before. AJ had been an alcoholic when she’d met him. He’d never been treated as such, never officially even admitted to being one, as far as she could remember, and never let it interfere with his daily life enough to get him fired or arrested, but there was no denying he had abused alcohol for most of his twenties. They had dabbled in drugs together, mostly just pot, but she knew AJ had also gone through a cocaine phase. He’d kicked the coke habit for the sake of the record store, but it was Jori’s pregnancy that had really forced him to straighten up. She’d given him an ultimatum: he would either stop drinking and drugging, or she would leave him. That was all it had taken. They’d both been clean and sober since then, Jori out of the necessity of not wanting to harm the baby, and AJ out of love for them both.
Jori did not consider herself idealistic to the point of ignorance, but she did believe in the power of love. It was love that had straightened out her man, just as it had fixed her, too. When she met AJ, she was nineteen years old, reckless, impulsive, and on the verge of flunking out of college. She thought of herself as a typical, collegiate wild child, living the party life and enjoying her newfound freedom and independence. Her psychiatrist called her manic. It was a drastic change from the depression she’d struggled with throughout her teens, and she was re-diagnosed as having bipolar disorder during the winter break of her freshman year. What followed was a three-month period of rapid cycling, which Jori was now convinced had been fueled by constant changes in her medication. In the midst of it all, while on a much-needed spring-break getaway with her girlfriends, she met AJ. Whether he alone was responsible, or if his entrance into her life just happened to coincide with her medication finally regulating, AJ McLean had triggered a turning point for Jori.
Four years later, she was happier than she’d been in a decade, without the aid of any medication. With AJ’s support, she’d gone off the anti-depressants and mood stabilizers a year or so after they’d moved in together, and with his love, she’d stayed healthier and happier without them. He was her drug now, and she was his muse, and together, they were blissfully in love.
Yet she worried about both of them passing on their mental illnesses to Lucy. She didn’t want her daughter to be depressed or dependent, as she and AJ had been. She wished only happiness upon her baby, and she hoped she and AJ would be able to give her the kind of life she deserved.
This was the train of thought Jori’s mind had taken, as she leisurely rinsed the suds from her breasts and belly, running her hands over the curves of her body, feeling taut, firm skin and raised, bumpy stretch marks. Her pregnant body was nowhere near as beautiful in real life as in the artsy, nude photographs AJ had taken, month by month, or the plaster cast he had made of her belly. Still, she had enjoyed being pregnant, marveling over the drastic ways her body had changed in the last nine months. She just wouldn’t miss having to use the bathroom every ten minutes, or the digestive problems, or the back pain.
The warm shower usually relieved such aches and pains, but as she stood there that morning, bringing her hands around to the small of her back, the water and steam did little to ease the cramps. And that was when she realized: she was thirty-nine weeks pregnant and almost certainly feeling the first pains of labor.
She didn’t jump instantly out of the shower in a panic. Everything she’d read in books and on the internet said that labor could last a long time, especially in first-time mothers, and not to rush to the hospital at the first sign of a contraction. So she took her time, rinsing thoroughly, before she stepped out of the shower and wrapped her swollen body in a large towel.
AJ was downstairs, running the store, so she dressed in a comfortable pair of sweatpants and an oversized Beatles t-shirt, combed out her wet hair, and crept down the stairs to find him. He wasn’t in the back room of the shop, and when she poked her head out into the main selling area, she saw only Howie, AJ’s best friend and business partner, manning the counter.
“Hey, where’s AJ?” she called over to him.
“Hey, Jori. He headed up to Troy - just left about an hour ago.”
“To Troy? What??” Jori cried, hearing, for the first time, a faint note of panic in her voice.
“Yeah, to see a collector. I guess this guy died in a motorcycle crash, and his wife wants to get rid of all his stuff. Apparently, he had a great set of vinyl. AJ went to check it out, see how much she’s asking. She only called this morning,” Howie added, “so that’s why he didn’t tell you he was going. Why, is something wrong?”
Jori ran her hands over her belly and uttered a faint chuckle. “Well… nothing, except, I think I’m in labor.”
“What??” Now Howie’s voice rang out with that same panicked tone, as his eyes bugged practically out of their sockets. “Seriously? You’re sure?”
Jori shrugged. “Not totally sure, I guess; I mean, I don’t really know… but I think so.”
“What should I do? Call AJ? Drive you to the hospital?” Howie bounced a little on the balls of his feet, reminding her of an overexcited Chihuahua.
“No hospital,” said Jori. “I’m doing a home birth.”
“What?? Really?”
“Yes, really.” Jori laughed at the look on his face. “Listen, don’t worry about it. It’ll be hours yet. I’m gonna go back upstairs and call AJ.”
“Well… what if…?” Howie hesitated; then his eyes lit up. “Wait, I know! Do you have a baby monitor yet?”
“Yeah, I got one at the shower.”
“Let me walk you up, and you show me where it is.”
There was no one in the store, so they left it empty for a few minutes and went back upstairs. Jori walked slowly, Howie right on her heels, apparently ready to catch her if she should suddenly topple over. At that point, she had a feeling she would only take him down with her.
Back in the apartment, she showed him into the baby’s room, now completely painted and set up to welcome Lucy. While Howie looked around, she found the monitor in the closet and took it out of its box. “Does it come with batteries? Great,” said Howie, taking one of the speakers from her. “Now, I’ll take this downstairs with me, and you keep the other one with you, and if you need anything, just holler, okay?”
“Okay,” Jori agreed, suppressing a smile at how neurotic he was being, way more so than AJ. “Thanks, Howie.”
“You bet.”
Howie went back down to the shop, his half of the baby monitor crackling in his hand. Jori took hers into the bedroom, where she kept her cell phone, and sat down on the bed to call AJ.
***
Some two hours later, Jori sat immersed in a pool of warm water, wearing her orange string bikini and clutching Howie’s hand.
“What time is it?” she demanded.
“Almost noon.”
“Where’s AJ?”
“He should be back any time now.”
“Well, where’s the fucking midwife?!”
“Relax, J-Wild,” chuckled Howie, squeezing her hand. “She’ll be here. I thought you said it was still early.”
Jori had thought so too, but now, she wasn’t so sure. If this was still early labor, she couldn’t imagine what it would feel like by the time she was ready to deliver. Her contractions had intensified tenfold in the last half hour, twisting and tearing at her insides with seemingly no relief. Over the phone, the midwife had told her to relax, that there was no way she could have progressed enough to be ready to push in such a short time, making it seem as if Jori were overreacting. Jori resented this. Sure, the midwife was more experienced, had attended many more births than Jori had endured, but only Jori could know how much pain she was in. She had always planned on a natural birth with little consideration for the alternative, but now she wondered how anyone who had been through this could advocate such torture.
“You have no idea how much this fucking hurts, Howie,” Jori growled through gritted teeth, fighting the urge to bear down. “I had no idea… no fucking clue…”
“The water’s not helping?” Howie asked, looking both sympathetic and completely helpless.
With Howie’s help, Jori had gotten out the birthing pool she had ordered, which looked a lot like the inflatable kind of backyard kiddie pool she had splashed around in as a child. It was deeper, though, and stronger, designed for the kind of abuse it would take when a pregnant woman was trying to push inside it. They’d inflated it an hour ago, and Howie had filled it with warm water. It was supposedly too early to get in, according to the midwife, but by that point, the pain had been so severe that Jori was desperate for the bit of relief being in the water might offer.
Soaking in the pool had helped somewhat, but she was still deeply uncomfortable, as she sat there, desperately waiting for her birth coach and midwife. She shook her head in response to Howie’s question. “Can you, like, distract me or something? Please,” she grunted, squeezing her eyes shut as a fresh wave of pain hit.
“Distract you how?” Poor Howie was completely out of his element. Jori knew he couldn’t wait for someone else to get there, so he’d be off the hook. He didn’t say it, but it was clear he thought she was completely insane for going about it this way. She was beginning to understand his logic.
“I dunno… How about you sing me a song?” She gasped, trying to remember the breathing techniques she’d learned in childbirth class. “AJ and I were gonna sing through the whole thing… so Lucy would come out to the sound of music and our voices.”
“Ah…” Howie’s tone was doubtful. “Well, what do you want me to sing?”
“Anything… Sing me your favorite song.”
“Um, okay…” Howie was quiet for a few seconds, apparently thinking, and then, to her surprise, he actually started to sing. “When you’re down and troubled, and you need a helping hand… and nothing, oh nothing, is going right… close your eyes and think of me, and soon I will be there… to brighten up even your darkest night. You just call out my name… and you know wherever I am… I’ll come running… to see you again…”
“Winter, spring, summer, or fall…” Jori chimed in weakly, her strained voice blending with Howie’s sweet falsetto, “… all you’ve got to do is call… and I’ll be there. You’ve got a friend…” She suddenly started to giggle. “James Taylor, huh? Is that really your favorite song?”
Howie stopped singing and shrugged. “Not really,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed. “Michael Jackson did a cover of it on an album I used to listen to as a kid. It just seemed like an appropriate choice.”
“Oh come on, Michael’s got way better stuff than that. Give me something upbeat,” Jori encouraged, leaning her head back against the side of the pool. She was only messing with him, but Howie was so anxious, he seemed willing to follow her every whim. By the time AJ got there, they were halfway through “Billie Jean,” Howie singing the lyrics, while Jori did her Lamaze breathing in time to the chord progression.
“Billie Jean is not my lover… She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one…”
“Hee… hoo… hee… hoo…”
“… but the kid is not my son…”
“Hee… hoo… hee… hoo…”
“She says I am the one… but the kid is not my son…”
“Somethin’ you wanna tell me, Jor?”
Jori sat up suddenly, sending water splashing up the sides of the pool. “AJ! You’re here! I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“I don’t doubt it,” AJ replied with a grin, coming around the pool to her other side. “That was a creative way of doing Lamaze. Maybe we should patent it, rake in some extra dough for the kid’s college. Whaddya think, D?”
Howie smiled gratefully. “I’m glad you’re here, man,” he said, and he sure looked it. “I had to close down shop; there was no one left to work it. You want me to open back up?”
“Nah… the screaming from upstairs might scare the customers.” AJ winked at Jori, who could only manage a weak smile back. “Put a note on the door on your way out: Closed for holiday.”
“Holiday?”
“It’s my daughter’s birthday, dude! There should be commemorative stamps for this day!”
Howie laughed. “Alright. Anything else you need me to do for you before I take off?”
“Nah… enjoy your day off; you deserve it. Thanks for taking care of my woman.”
“My pleasure,” said Howie, who was being polite. Jori knew there could be no pleasure in babysitting a screaming whale in an orange bikini. She echoed her thanks before Howie left, making a mental note to get him a nice gift once this was all over.
And then it was just AJ and her. He kissed the top of her damp head and asked how she was feeling. She recounted all that had happened since he’d taken off that morning, haltingly, because the contractions were too strong to allow her to talk continuously. She kept taking breaks to moan and shriek and attempt to breathe through the pain. “This isn’t right,” she told AJ finally, looking desperately up at him with tears in her eyes. “This can’t be normal. It hurts so bad…”
“Where’s the goddamn midwife?” AJ looked around, as if expecting her to pop up out of nowhere.
“She’s coming, but she told me there was no hurry. But I dunno how much more of this I can take, AJ…”
AJ stood up. “I’m gonna call her.”
“Wait – will you just… check me first? Look down there and tell me how dilated you think I am?”
Her boyfriend went pale. “… What?”
“Oh come on, AJ, it’s not like you haven’t seen it before,” Jori retorted in frustration. “Just look and see how big the goddamn hole is.” She undid the ties on the bottoms of her bikini, which she’d put on only for Howie’s sake, and pulled them off, spreading her legs and arching her back.
Looking revolted, AJ snuck a peek. “How do I know if you’re, uh… dilated enough?”
“Well, is the opening big enough for a baby’s head?”
“No, no way… I don’t think so…”
“Okay…” Jori sighed. “I wish she’d get here soon.”
“I’ll call her.”
This time, Jori let him. He retreated into their bedroom to make the call, closing the door behind him. Through the walls, she could hear his muffled voice cussing out the midwife. But when he came back, there was a smile on his face, and he announced, “She’s on her way, babe!”
“Good…” Jori lay her head back again. She already felt weak and faint, exhausted, and couldn’t imagine finding the strength to push a baby out of her anytime soon.
“Can I get you anything, Jor?”
“Um… a glass of water would be great. I’m thirsty…”
“You got it.” He fetched the water, tipping the glass to her lips so that she could sip. Despite her thirst, she drank only a little; the cold water splashing into her empty stomach made her nauseous, too nauseous to even consider eating something. “Anything else?” AJ asked, when she pushed the water glass aside.
The contractions intensified before she could answer, and she squeezed her eyes shut again, gripping his arm. “God, just take my mind off it. Sing – that helped…”
As pleasant as Howie’s high tenor had been, nothing compared to AJ’s singing voice. It was sexy and soulful, powerful… She felt sure he could have had a career singing rock or R&B, if he’d pursued it. On that day, though, he chose to sing something different, something just for her.
“In the town where I was born… lived a man who sailed to sea… and he told us of his life… in the land of submarines. So we sailed on to the sun… ‘til we found a sea of green… and we lived beneath the waves… in our yellow submarine…”
Jori smiled, in spite of the pain, and chimed in, “We all live in a yellow submarine… yellow submarine… yellow submarine,” while AJ sang the lower harmony. “We all live in a yellow submarine… yellow submarine… yellow submarine…” She focused on the familiar lyrics, trying to block out the agonizing contractions.
“As we live a life of ease… every one of us has all we need…”
“All we need!”
“Sky of blue…”
“Sky of blue!”
“… and sea of green…”
“Sea of green!”
“… in our yellow…”
“In our yellow-”
“… submarine.”
“-submarine!” called Jori with her last ounce of will, before suddenly dissolving into tears.
AJ stopped singing, threw an arm around her wet shoulders, and pulled her to him. “Oh baby, baby… I hate seeing you like this. You sure you don’t wanna reconsider? I can take you to the hospital right now.”
She shook her head fiercely. “No. Women have been giving birth like this since… since the dawn of time. If they can do it… so can I. I just… didn’t think it would be so… hard…”
It was during this meltdown that the midwife, Barb, finally arrived. She still seemed under the impression that Jori was being overly dramatic, as she knelt down beside the pool and said, “Don’t waste all your energy crying, honey. You’re gonna need your strength when it’s time to push. Let’s see how close you are…” She snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and Jori parted her legs again to let the midwife look and feel.
“You’re only about five centimeters dilated, hon,” said Barb, patting Jori’s bare leg. “You still have quite a ways to go.”
“Only five?” Jori moaned desperately. “But it hurts so bad! You’re telling me I’m only halfway there? That it’s gonna get worse?”
“I know it hurts, Jori, but this is what you wanted, remember? A natural birth at home, with no drugs, no needles or scalpels… Think of how good it’s going to feel once you deliver Lucy, how nice it will be for her to be born in such a peaceful, comfortable environment…” Barb’s voice was calm and reassuring, but Jori found it hard to relax when she was in such agony. She tried, though, resting her head against the back of the pool once more and closing her eyes. She felt like passing out and waking up only when it was time to push.
And then it happened, quite suddenly: a white hot eruption of pain in her belly that jolted her upright again. There was pressure, and as she screamed, bearing down on AJ’s hand, she felt something release and looked down to see a significant spurt of bright red quickly diffusing in the clear water. The sight of blood instantly made her feel faint, but she thought at first, She was wrong; this is it! I’m about to deliver!
The pain was almost blinding, but she managed to look at Barb for confirmation, and it was then that she saw the look on Barb’s face. It was not a look of excitement or encouragement, but one of alarm.
“What’s wrong?” AJ demanded, and though he’d tried to sound assertive, Jori heard the tremor of fear in his voice. “Is she supposed to be bleeding like that??”
“No,” said Barb, and her voice, too, was shaky. “No, she’s hemorrhaging. It could be a placental abruption. We need to get her to the hospital immediately.”
“What?!” Jori’s voice rose, sounding faraway and distorted in her own ears, as if she were hearing it through a tin can. “No... I want to give birth at home…”
“It’s out of the question now, honey.” Barb spoke kindly, but firmly. “There’s been a complication, and if we don’t take you to the hospital right now, we might lose you or Lucy.”
Hearing her daughter’s name was enough to make Jori see reason, and she felt herself give a single, weak nod of consent. She was only half-aware of what happened after that. One moment, she was lying limply in the pool, on the verge of fainting from blood loss and pain, and the next, she was bundled in something warm and dry, being carried by a pair of strong arms – AJ’s? – and then, having drifted in and out of consciousness, she found herself lying across the backseat, cocooned in whatever they had clothed her with, dimly aware of the sensation of movement, the car’s tires speeding over the road beneath her. Vaguely, she heard AJ’s voice calling her name.
“Jori… hang on, Jori… you’re gonna be alright, baby… we’re almost to the hospital…”
Hospital… she thought in anguish. Lucy…
Then she lost consciousness completely.
***
