The Melancholy of Cassandra-Marie

(14)

 I wish my mother was around more. I was hoping she'd be here to teach me about certain moments in life that I'd need to know about — for instance, to warn me that pushing another human being out of your body not only feels horrible, but it's as if someone ran you over with a train, and then lit you on fire once it was all over. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe she was going to tell me when I was actually married — retired from gymnastics, late twenties, married to a good boy with a stable job. Maybe when she found out out the baby, she was so disgusted that she decided to let me figure out just how bad it is myself.

There were days where training was awful. My bones hurt, my skin littered with bruises and powder from the floor and bars. My thighs felt like they'd been slashed with a knife, my shins busted and rubbery. My muscles felt like hot liquid, disintegrating beneath my skin. Like my skull was the consistency of one of those gooey stress balls, and my brain was no better — as if it were to seep out of my earholes if my head were tilted one way for too long. I thought pain couldn't get any worse than days like those. I was so horribly, arduously wrong.

Oh good, sweet heaven, everything hurts. I just try to keep my breathing steady and paced, they way I always do before stepping onto the floor. I cry out in pain as the nurses look at me, promising it's almost over.

"His shoulders are out, Cassandra. You just need one more push!" someone in the room calls to me. I think it was the doctor, but everything more than four feet away from me is a blur and an annoyance. Something on the wall catches my eye, oddly enough — a rack of empty needles, presumably used for epidurals. The thought of something the thickness of a pin sliding into my skin makes the tips of my fingers go numb, and makes my feet feel like I'm about to put them into something dangerous, or perhaps over the edge of a one-thousand foot cliff. My stomach churns as my nervous system clenches itself at a maximum capacity of feeling. Next to the rack of needles, there a poster of a placenta, showing both a diagram and a real photo. There's some repulsive mass of tissue inside of me, and when it comes out it's going to be all mushy. Blood vessels are going to be gouged, it's going to be dark red. My insides are going to be gushing blood. I realize how much danger I suddenly appear to be in. The thought of that bloody mass coming out me makes me feel uncomfortable and nauseous. It's going to be a plate-sized mass of disgust and fluid and utter rawness, that I will always remember when I think of the brutality of the birth. I feel like throwing up. Before my throat begins to feel short and I actually can, the nurse notices my face and tries to distract me. The other encourages me as my abdominal and pelvic muscles tighten. She begins counting down from ten. Each second goes by so agonizingly slow. It feels like one of the longest segments of time I've ever experienced. I groan, physically tormented. In just a few more seconds, it'll all over. I close my eyes and shut it all out.

"That's it, you're done!" the doctor exclaims, looking up at me. I lift my head up a little to see the baby. He's crying, but he's not as shiny and bloody as I thought he'd be. The doctor wipes him off with a towel, patting him dry. I lay back for a minute as my hips just barely start to regain feeling. The nurse wipes my head off with a cool, damp cloth.

"Congratulations miss Strauss, he's beautiful. Would you like to hold him?"

"Oh, of course." I choke. I extend my arms out, eager to hold my son for the first time. The doctor gently places him against my chest. I carefully pull his blanket back, revealing his tiny features. His eyes are open just a tad, revealing little brown irises nearly identical to his father's. His nose is tiny and upturned a little, and his skin is between a shade of fair and golden tan. Most of his features resemble Louis, rather than my own. The only distinct thing I can tell is mine are his lips. Louis' are pretty thin, but the baby's are slightly more shapely and feminine. Looking at him makes me feel proud, more than anything else.

The few remaining people in my life have seen that I'm going to be a mother and have been disappointed in me. There was a very short time where, because of this, I was also disappointed in me. But the few who have been there helped me survive this. But I've come to the realization that I also helped myself survive all this. The birth of my son, I believe, has marked the beginning of a new part of my life. I look at him and I feel like I'm capable of rebuilding myself, and spreading love and positivity to the people who have stayed with me.

He sticks his little hand out of his swaddle. His fingers reach out, then bunch into a fist as he retreats a little to keep warm. He is perfect, and he's mine. I close my eyes to ease the strain on my body, smiling in content. Knowing I have him, and that I did this makes me feel invincible. Honorati told me about this once, about a year ago, I think. It's a feeling hard to describe, other than that it feels like the most honorable, respectful duty — a mother's love.

I have faltered many times in the past; mostly in my own feelings and judgements. I have struggled along for a more than lengthy amount of time. But thinking about that now, it feels like the strain on the bonds keeping me together have finally let up. Like my baby, I feel new.

They take him to run tests, and tell me to relax. I lay back and exhale. The weight slides off my shoulders. This is a new beginning for me — I feel winded, but unstoppably proud. I've been given the chance to start all over, and with open arms, that is an opportunity I am more than willing to take.