The Crying Book. Heather Christle

I am sobbing on the bathroom floor, what does the baby feel?

      Chris knocks on the door and we postpone the argument, but I cannot stop weeping all over the linoleum. The argument is about the cat, whether he will be allowed to sleep in the room with us, with the baby. All I can think of is the cat’s own crying, which I cannot bear. People often mistake the cries of a cat for those of an infant. They say this may be a wise adaptation on the animal’s part. I am crying because I am afraid of losing myself in the fog.

      One fog points to another. I can see in my pregnant tears the shape of those shed in other moments. This frightens me. Am I lost already? How far? How far to go?

      When I am in the fog of despair I fear I cry too much to be a good partner or parent or person, that something within me is utterly broken, that any reprieve—a day of joy! a poem!—is temporary and somehow false. But that is the fog doing its work, making everything large and grotesque. When the fog lifts I can point up, say Look, it is a cloud.

      One of the ways Chris loves me is that he waits while I cry. He tells me it will pass. He does not leave. And when the fog lifts he makes space for me to write.

      When the contractions begin, I take a shower. My hair has reached a point of greasiness that makes it difficult for me to concentrate on anything else—even giving birth—and I figure I have some time. But when I get out of the shower the contractions are just four minutes apart. Every time one hits I hand the hair dryer to my sister, who has flown out from New England along with my mother for the occasion. When the pain recedes she passes it back. Eventually I give up, wind the long strands into a bun. Days later, delivered and delirious, when I finally take my hair down again, it will still be wet.

      The pain is very bad. I do not shed tears. I moan. I try to find words for myself, an adequate image. I am a giant bear riding a tiny tricycle of pain. I am a brown paper bag with no bottom and the pain is falling through me. It does not diminish the pain, but it gives me something else to hold in my body: the satisfaction of having shaped an accurate description.

      After a night of vomiting with every contraction and a day of sucking popsicles through the glorious numbness of an epidural, the doctor tells me it is time for a C-section, and that—as I am at risk for massive hemorrhaging—he may have to remove my uterus along with the baby. I sink into a terrible dry calm, while my sister, who has not slept, begins to cry. I understand she is crying because she is witnessing a difficult and maybe sorrowful event. I understand I am not crying because I am the event.