T O K Y O    B A B Y

   On the day my youngest daughter was born, the cicadas were singing in a frenzied chorus outside, even though it was three in the morning.  I lay shivering and sweating in the delivery room and in between the contractions I could hear them even over the drone of the air-conditioning: whee-whee-wheeeeeeuh.

   My husband was in temporary accommodation nearby with our 3-year-old. We were not at our own home in Chiba Prefecture because the Tokyo hospital I chose to give birth in was a two-and-a-half-hour train journey away. My first labor having been only five hours long, I’d been warned that my second one might be even shorter, and I didn’t fancy giving birth on a packed rush-hour commuter train racing along at 60 miles an hour. When friends in Tokyo offered us the use of their air-conditioned flat while they were on holiday, we gratefully accepted: our house in the suburbs was too old to have air-conditioning installed, and Japan was experiencing the hottest summer in recorded history. Keeping cool is hard when you’re pregnant and have a built-in, always-on central heating system of your very own, so I was thankful to be able to spend the last month of my pregnancy in Tokyo, in air-conditioned comfort.

   Of course when I say ‘comfort,’ the term is relative. I suffered hugely from heartburn and other digestive woes all through my pregnancy, and I was half the size of an aircraft carrier by my fifth month. My due date was August 5, and I worked right up through the second week of July which entailed a daily two-and-a-half-hour commute into Tokyo and back. As my pregnancy progressed, just getting to the station in the morning became an ordeal. I began to feel a growing sympathy with overweight people: shifting my bulk up the station stairs left me huffing and puffing, and the looks I got from my fellow commuters put a real dent in my self-esteem. As early as March, the check-out ladies at our local supermarket started wondering aloud whether I wasn’t expecting twins, or maybe triplets.  By April, people began giving me their seats on the train, jumping to their feet with looks of great concern; occasionally I got Not near me, lady stares. By May I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time, and had to pee every thirty minutes. As June melted into July, the oppressive humidity and extreme heat made walking even short distances arduous. Towards the end of July, comfort was a distant memory.

   As it happened, I was already in the hospital when I went into labor, having been fooled by false labor. They were going to discharge me once they figured out that nothing was happening, but I was so tired, hot and utterly miserable after my trip to the hospital that my doctor agreed to let me spend the night there. Good thing they did: by midnight, my labor had started. When the nurse asked me if she should call my husband, I told her to let him know I was in labor but that he didn’t need to come – that I could cope on my own. I felt brave doing this. He’d been with me for our first daughter’s birth, in Wales. Now here I was, going it alone in Toyko: such an adventure!

   Two midwives were on duty that night. One had kind eyes and an understanding manner. The other was bossy, obnoxiously sure of herself and with a tendency to tell rather than to ask. Both were young and competent, but I soon began to dread the bossy-boots and yearn for the compassionate one. The bossy one fired questions at me when I was in the middle of a contraction and waited impatiently for my answer, glancing ostentatiously at her wristwatch. She had trouble understanding my Japanese. ‘What?’ she would scowl, looking irritated, just as I was mid-contraction. The kind midwife seemed to understand me perfectly even when I garbled words and made stupid mistakes, such as referring to pain-killers (itami-dome) as sunscreen (hiyake-dome), which I did repeatedly. (It was a hot summer, and keeping my active three-year-old sun-safe had become something of an obsession.)

   I’d ended up with an epidural anesthetic during my first labor, so this time I was determined to go natural. The bossy midwife readily assented. ‘No pain relief,’ she agreed, as though it was a foregone conclusion; ‘Natural birth is best!’  I found her authoritative dismissal of pain relief worrying. On one hand, it was my idea not to have it, but on the other hand, I didn’t like anyone telling me that I shouldn’t have it. When my first baby was born in Wales, the midwives assured me that I was the queen and they were my handmaidens: my wish was their command. Now it was obviously the other way around and I was being told what to do. No, my bossy midwife reluctantly admitted, she’d never had a baby herself, but that didn’t matter. She knew that natural birth was the only way to go. How do you know? Without even the slightest trace of embarrassment, she replied: ‘I read it in a book.’

   The kind midwife stood by my side and held my hand. If I decided I wanted pain relief, she whispered, then pain relief I would get. At one point, she gently extracted her fingers from my death grip and let me dig my nails into her forearms instead. She stood mutely by my bed when a contraction took me, and mopped my forehead with her free hand. To this day I can remember the look of compassion on her face as I winced and groaned. When I saw her the day after my baby was born, she had long pink welts on her slender forearms where my fingers had gripped her.

   Unfortunately, at some point in the evening the kind midwife went off duty and I ended up with the bossy one. Fortunately, I was pretty much past caring. The contractions were taking on the intensity of a five-alarm fire, the sweat was rolling off me, and for some reason all I could think about was slave mothers having their babies on slave ships. I had just finished reading a very moving book about slavery which was still fresh in my memory, but whatever the reason, when they rolled me into the delivery room, I was lecturing everybody on slave mothers having their babies in slavery and remarking over and over again How could they bear it? How could they beaaaar it?  I remember thinking how horrible it would be to go through such pain only to have your baby snatched away from you, and I was anxious to to share my feelings on this subject with the nurse and midwife. Unfortunately, pain had a negative effect on my communication skills: the pediatric nurse interrupted me in mid-flow, turned to the midwife and muttered What in the world is she talking about?

   Just after I’d been wheeled into the delivery room, a nurse came rushing in and breathlessly informed my midwife that someone else had gone into hard labor with her first baby and they still couldn’t track down my doctor. I wasn’t worried. I was in agony; I didn’t have room to be worried. Get this baby out! I had begun to holler. The pediatric nurse just smiled and shook her head; the bossy midwife snapped that I ought to save my energy to push out my baby. Then I heard the other laboring woman yelling, calling out for her mother, and my heart went out to her. Hearing her cry out calmed me: I felt that I had to be a good example for her, veteran mother that I was.

   It became comic. I would scream in the middle of a contraction, then grow quiet as the pain faded, only for the woman in the next room to take up the call. When she let up, my contractions would begin again, and it went on and on in a hilarious, though rather sickening, cycle. When I wasn’t ranting about slave ships and wincing in sympathy for the woman next to me, I was laughing at myself, at the whole messy, chaotic, incredible business of having a baby. Every contraction produced a flood of water and blood – I couldn’t believe how much stuff I’d had inside me. ‘You’ll need gumboots!’ I shouted to the doctor when she finally showed up. What’s she saying? the doctor muttered to the pediatric nurse, snapping on her gloves. Something about ships and the carpet – God only knows! came the answer.

   In retrospect I don’t think I was as loud as the woman in the next room. It was her first baby, after all, and much of the time I was too busy with sick fantasies of slave ships and worries about ruining the carpet. Plus I was, in a desultory and haphazard manner, trying to follow the various Japanese conversations I heard around me. I like your hair I remember the paediatric nurse telling my doctor, who’d obviously just been to the hairdresser’s.

    My doctor yawned hugely. Yeah – just got it done this past evening, I reckoned I’d have enough time.  

    Which place was that – the one in Omote Sando? –  Push, Mary, use your breath and push!

     No, no – I go to a new one in Roppongi now. Mary, you hold on to Matsunaka there, let go of me –

     Do you think Nakayama will need another C-section?

     Oh yes. Absolutely. Did you see the ultrasound? Head the size of a basketball. Okay, here it comes now, another one, Mary – deep slow breath in and then out – now control it!  – Yes, yes, that’s it! And – push!

They also discussed the wisdom of installing a dishwasher in a small kitchen. It was surreal: hairdressers and dishwashers – then they’d suddenly enjoin me to push! Harder! – then they were back to Mrs Nakayama’s coming caesarean and whether Mrs Hashimoto needed to have her labor induced, only to stop suddenly and say Oh Mary – we can see her head! She’s got dark hair!.

When I started making real progress, they began to place bets on whether I, or my neighbor-in-labor, would have her baby first. It’s neck to neck, Mary! America or Japan – who’ll be number one?

   Then there was a blood-curdling scream followed by a shout – and after this the unmistakable cries of a newborn. The woman in the room next to me had done it!  I was so thrilled for her – so genuinely relieved that she’d gotten through her ordeal – that I yelled out congratulations at the top of my lungs Omedetoo!!! Banzaiiii!  My doctor, the midwife, and the pediatric nurse all jumped. My God, Mary – save your energy! they scolded. From the next room, however, came a tremulous, though surprised, thank-you:  Arigato. 

   ‘I am in hell,’ I told room in general. ‘Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell!’  But they’d heard it all before. Well, Mary, said my doctor, suppressing another yawn, do you know the proverb:  A friend in need is the Buddha you meet in hell? Maybe your baby will be the Buddha you meet in hell.  Oddly, I didn’t find this reassuring; I took to reciting my own ‘birth mantra:’ Oh hurry up and get her out, oh hurry up and get her out, oh hurry up –  Even to myself I sounded like a drunk. But my doctor wasn’t the least bit fazed.  Save your energy for having the baby – enough talking!  she snapped, glancing at her watch and not even bothering to hide her yawn.   

   Go ahead and swear! urged the bossy midwife. Swear in English – we don’t mind! So I tried this. ‘Damn,’ I ventured, ‘Oh – damn. Darn. Golly.’ To this day I still don’t understand it. I swear just fine – ask anyone who knows me. But through this labor as with the first, swearing failed me utterly. Not only could I not do it properly, but when I did manage to get a few choice words out, it wasn’t satisfying.

   It was at this point that I decided that I must get into a squatting position. The problem was, I could not for the life of me remember how to say ‘squat’ in Japanese, so I announced that I wanted to sit. This obviously wasn’t the done thing, but they decided to humor me anyway. My doctor grabbed one arm and the midwife took the other and both of them managed to heave my bulk into a sitting position; I took it from there. Good! my doctor praised me. Yes! gushed the bossy young midwife, as though I were her star pupil. Now take a deep breath and push! 

   There comes a point in labor when, although you know intellectually that your ordeal will have an end, your own self – your whole identity – becomes consumed by pain and that end is almost beyond fathoming. Squatting there with my doctor on one side and the midwife on the other, my whole body engulfed in wave after wave of shuddering torment, I felt as though all time had stopped. Nothing in the world mattered to me more than getting that baby out.  I wasn’t me anymore, either: I was just so much sweating, heaving, oozing flesh. A great hulk of pain, a throbbing, pulsing pod desperate to expel a bloody mess.  In fleeting moments of clarity, I remembered how women I knew with babies had laughed and said about their labors, ‘Oh, it isn’t so bad.’  Yes it bloody well was!

   I have a vague memory of a hellish moment or two when the midwife crouched down between my legs and called up to the doctor, who stood idly by looking both sleepy and bored, still enjoining me to push! Now push! every few seconds, between yawns. Then there was a whoosh and an explosion of pain and I saw my baby shoot out into the midwife’s arms, a slippery fish, pink and wet. ‘A girl!’ they shouted superfluously, and suddenly I was desperate to see her: Show me!  I kept calling out. And then I was holding her in my arms.

   Even as I held her, though, I saw her begin to turn purple and struggle for breath. The pediatric nurse was so fast that I hardly had time to panic: in seconds she had cleared my baby’s nose and before my eyes, I watched as purple faded back into healthy pink. My beautiful baby never cried once – not even when she struggled for breath. She just lay quietly in my arms and seemed to take in her surroundings.

‘See if she’ll nurse!’ the doctor advised. I remembered my inept struggles with my first baby – how it had taken several people an untoward amount of time to get the baby to latch on and stay on – and had a moment of doubt.  I needn’t have, though:  May was a pro. Hungry, too. Everybody oohed and aahed as she went for broke, latching on with all the eagerness of a terrier, sucking with little growls of contentment. ‘What a clever baby!’ they all agreed, and I felt a moment of intense pride. And relief too. Overwhelming relief.

   Then they all left us. We lay there in the dark room, my baby and I, listening to the drone of the air-conditioning and beyond it, the shree-shree-shreeeee of the cicadas outside. For a blissful minute or two, everything was wonderful. I lay there with May, listening to her tiny infant snorts, stroking her dark hair, counting her fingers and toes. But slowly I began to be aware of a pain that started off as an irritation, then gradually got worse. This was altogether different from a labor pain in that it was not of a cramping nature. It was a searing pain, like a knife slicing through me. And in no time at all it had gone from irritating to painful to agonizing. Suddenly I found myself screaming again and yanking on my call-button for all I was worth.

   The bossy midwife eventually showed up. What did I want now, she wanted to know, her voice thick with exasperation. I hugged my baby to me with one arm, afraid that the pain would get so bad I would either drop her or send her flying, and pointed with my free hand – Down there! Hurts!  The midwife flashed me an Oh, for God’s sake look and, sighing, moved down to the end of the gurney. I felt the sheet lifted off me and heard her sharp intake of breath. And then – as if from far away – I heard her shrieking for help. A doctor came running, but by this time I was making so much noise that I’m amazed she could hear the midwife over the racket. 

   Hours later, when I came to, they told me that I’d had a haematoma. That a blood vessel had burst in the ‘birth passage’ and I had lost a great deal of blood. The bossy midwife told me triumphantly that if I’d had anaesthesia, I might well have died from it. ‘It was the pain that saved you,’ she exclaimed. She also told me that she knew how painful it had been – much more painful than having a baby. I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I had to ask anyway:  ‘How do you know that?’ She gave me a superior look and said crisply: I read it in a book.