Having Faith by Steingraber Sandra

Author:Steingraber, Sandra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2012-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

I do not have to wait long before the next sign arrives. A few hours after falling asleep on my nylon-covered bed, I wake up wet. Not floating in a puddle but definitely wet. When I stand up, the trickle stops. It starts up again when I lie down. For this reason, I guess it is not urine, which I’ve also been leaking lately but only when upright. It also doesn’t feel like urine. It’s slippery—like contact lens wetting solution—and smells like semen or the ocean. I rub it between my fingers. Is this the texture of amniotic fluid? Craving sleep, I decide not to ring all the alarm bells this time. Let the night be unbroken by analysis and surmisings. Let morning come when it will.

I sleep late. The next day, the autumnal equinox, is sunny and mild. Other than damp sheets, there is no evidence of further change. I feel equally poised between pregnancy and birth.

Except in Hollywood movies, most births do not begin with bags of water bursting open. This notable event usually occurs well into active labor. In about one in every ten pregnancies, however, the amniotic sac breaks, or is otherwise breached, before the onset of uterine contractions. Most women who experience what is officially called premature rupture of membranes go into spontaneous labor within twenty-four hours. The tiny minority who do not start laboring make their obstetricians very nervous because the chance of infection mounts with every hour that goes by. It’s not a great risk, but it’s a real one. During the phase of my pregnancy in which I interviewed almost every mother I encountered about her experience with labor, I heard two stories involving early ruptures. Both involved planned home births. In one, a forty-year-old giving birth to her fourth child walked around for two weeks leaking amniotic fluid and then went on to have a healthy baby girl at home with the assistance of her midwife. In the other, a forty-year-old giving birth to her first child walked around for three days with ruptured membranes, spiked a fever, and was driven to the hospital by her midwife where she received a cesarean section at the hands of doctors furious that labor had not been induced right after her water broke. In the end, her baby was also fine, but only thanks to medical heroics.

I call Sheila. She prohibits baths and sexual intercourse; she endorses long walks and nipple stimulation, both of which are known to promote uterine contractions. It’s time for this baby to be born. And so we walk, Jeff and I, stopping every now and again to make out like a couple of teenagers. We walk up and down the hills of Somerville. We walk past soccer fields and churches, past bakeries, video stores, retirement homes, fruit stands, consignment shops, tobacco shops, pasta shops, bridal shops, used-car lots, and at least one nunnery. Behold, my little one, the city waits to welcome you. It is full of things both wondrous and absurd.

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