More Than Enough

MORE THAN ENOUGH

It is so alarming how fast her little heart beats. My ultrasound technician assures me it is normal, Thank God. Just one more day and she’ll be in my arms. Lou’s already stronger than I am. I hope she looks like me.

I rest my hands over my belly on the way out. The technician wiped off most of the excess gloop, but my shirt still sticks to my belly. Nobody is with me to open my car door. I ease myself behind the wheel and take a glance at the empty carseat in my rearview mirror. It is awaiting her as eagerly as I am.

I don’t drive a “family car.” There is no need. My small car is more than enough for Lou and me.

My delivery nurse is named Lily-Mae. She has a clip in her hair and polka dot acrylic nails. But most strikingly, she has a diamond on her finger. She lets me hold her hand when Dr. Paige induces me.

To distract from the pain, I close my eyes and imagine her life. Obviously a loving man is waiting at home. Perhaps he’s even cooking dinner to give Lily-Mae a break after her long shift doting on expectant mothers. They likely have a few kids themselves, and she will give them a kiss on the head as she loops her keys on the nail by the door. Before dinner, surely they say the blessing on the food. God watches over their household because they have a marriage certificate.

Maybe her husband is the type of man who tells bedtime stories. The kids all pile into one twin bed so they can all hear it at once, the moments of magic before bed. And even Lily-Mae listens from the hallway, smiling to herself because she gave her children the best thing in the world: not just a father but a dad.

When Lily-Mae sees my tears, she asks if I am alright. I squeeze her hand a little harder and tell her yes.

Chewing ice gives me something to do, and I feel unable to stomach much more. Lily-Mae brings me the good pebble ice from the cafeteria and places a cold pack on my forehead. “You’re doing great, Hun. You’ve got this.”

She will do well when her kids are sick, she seems to know the best tricks.

The epidural helps. My lower body goes wonderfully numb and a few minutes after the pain has left me, I fall asleep. The magic of the medicine is almost as good as a bedtime story. Lily-Mae has left the door open and I hear her chatting with another nurse in the hall. I allow a few moments of indulgent dreaming that it’s my parents' voices mixed in with my sisters and a doting husband. I hear the sounds of my loved ones, courteously having moved to the hall so I could take a brief rest. They chat about Lou and me, and how much they love us. The thought feels safe and I am too damn tired to chase it away.

After my nap, I drift in a sea of numbness. I keep my eyes closed so Lily-Mae does not come by and chat about Pilates and her makeup routine. I like her distractions, but I want to spend these last moments with just Lou, before we become two separate people. She’s ready to come, and I am ready to meet her. We’re family, the two of us.

At some point, my sisters float through my thoughts and say hello. They are a welcomed addition, I have missed them terribly. M numbness makes me think of a hot summer afternoon from fifteen years ago. My sisters and I were sliding down the slip and slide when my foot caught on the sprinkler, ripping my big toenail in half. We piled into the van and mom drove us in a panic to urgent care.

I got to be the meat in the “sister sandwich" as we called it, my sisters both being bread beside me. We all three squished together on the exam table, the paper crinkling under our wet swimsuits. I am sure we were a sight, with our unbrushed damp hair and blood dripping onto the floor from my foot.

I received two shots right to the fleshy bleeding part of my toe, the first was to numb the pain. For the rest of the day, my toe had felt just as it does now, completely void of feeling. My sisters had held me during the worst of it, and then we went home and stayed with me. Since I couldn’t play outside, nobody else wanted to either. We sat on my bed and laughed until it was time for dinner.

If I was married, today would be much like that day. We would have another sister sandwich and they would be squished beside me in bed and mom would have driven us.

During my labor, I see Lily-Mae has switched to a silicone wedding band. She holds my hand and tells me “The Lord won’t give me a trial I am unable to bear.” She is right in the sense that I did not die, but I feel as though I was right up to that door between what I can bear and what I can’t. And who is he to decide what I can handle when it is his rules to begin with that keeps my family from my hospital room tonight.

My labor ends in one final exhausted effort. I am soaked in sweat and even though I can’t feel my legs, I see them shaking. Dr. Paige tells me she is healthy and beautiful and has a good set of lungs. Thank God for that.

Dr. Paige looks to be my Father’s age. I wonder where he is tonight, right at this moment when he becomes a Grandpa. Is he on the coach, sipping hot chocolate after family prayer? Or already fast asleep next to my mom, dreaming about work, a ham and toast breakfast, and the moral corruptness of his eldest daughter.

Lou has stopped her crying and they hand her to me and we nurse, just her and I. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Little Lou” I whisper into her wisps of honey hair. She’s so very small with perfect little hands and little legs that curl up under her like she’s still a little ball inside me. She looks like me, I can tell.

My mom was distant in a tired way. Cleaning the house, wrestling three girls on the bus, and dinner on the table at night wiped her out. She didn’t play, she would shoo us out of her room for a nap. She was the type to hit you hard on the head when brushing your hair if you were antsy.

She must have loved me. How can a woman go through those nine months of pain and fear and feel anything but endless love towards the little baby they get, the one laying on their chest.

I’ve loved Lou from the moment I knew she was in me and despite pressures I had to make her go away. And I will love her forever, no matter what. How can I not? I feel her little heart tapping against my chest and I snuggle her closer. She’s my family.

That night I sign her birth certificate Louisa June Carter. I do not fill out who her Father is, because he is not the sort to be a Dad.

Our family is small, it’s just Lou and me. That will be more than enough.