Pavlova Plus One. Episode Five.

«So your contractions aren't going to start!» concluded the lady doctor. By her calculations they were supposed to begin today, but I hadn't felt anything resembling pain since I twisted my ankle: I'd pulled on my high-heeled boots and traipsed off to visit friends, covering my belly with a knitted shawl. But I didn't get far – I stumbled on the stairs and twisted my ankle. Well, what do you expect? My belly blocked the steps, so I was walking by feel…
- And how did the pregnancy go? - the doctor asked.
- Fine, no complications.
- Morning sickness?
- Had it for a week, then it passed…
- Kidneys?
- All good.
- And your haemoglobin? – the doctor wouldn't let up.
- Haemoglobin's normal too.
- Hmm… - the doctor looked disappointed.
There really was nothing to latch onto. But the contractions weren't starting, that was a fact.
- Maybe I'm just afraid of giving birth. And you know, there's such trash going on in the world right now that no normal child would want to crawl out into it, – I offered my theory.
- What's going on in the world? – the doctor asked again.
- Trash.
The doctor made a face as if she'd grasped the general gist of what I meant.
- So-so-so-so-so… That means we'll induce.
The word «induce» actually rather appealed to me. Such a brisk, pleasant, modern word. But I wasn't sure it applied to pregnant women. And I grew anxious:
- And what are you going to induce with? Stimulants? And if so, which ones?
The doctor adjusted the glasses on the bridge of her nose and gave me a long, thoughtful look.
- The main thing is don't worry. Come in with your things in a week or so, we'll give you a little jab, and your labour will begin.
I wasn't in any great hurry to give birth, so I gladly agreed to wait a little longer.
The week went by fast. Worn out by phone calls: «well, have you had it yet?», I finally checked into the hospital.
I was surrounded by women on the verge of labour and nursing mothers dressed in terry robes and slippers. Everyone looked terrible and was waiting for something. Deep in the corridor newborns were screaming. The atmosphere was tense. Here and there a cleaning lady flitted about with a bucket and mop, people in white coats bustled around. There was even a black man among them. I thought that if my gynaecologist had been a man, and a black one at that, I couldn't have gone through with it. Apparently I'm a racist. I might even exert a harmful ideological influence on my child. A child. God, in a few hours they're going to hand me a child! F…………k!
The panic set in right before the little jab. They led me into a tiled room, laid me on a couch and tried to set up a drip. I immediately threw a fit: «Wait! I can't do it like this. You don't have enough doctors here. I'm scared without doctors. I need lots of people in white coats around, lots of equipment, electrical devices, medicines, preferably banned ones. And, by the way, do you have sodium oxybate? You definitely should have it, because I was told it's the anaesthetic for pregnant women. No? Pity. Anyway, until the anaesthesiologist comes, no drips!»
The anaesthesiologist was summoned immediately. She turned out to be a pleasant woman who introduced herself as Nino Valerianovna. I even thought her patronymic was a joke, but it turned out to be real.
Five minutes later my lower back started aching. «Sciatica» I shared my sensations with the doctors. «Oh yeah… In a few hours you'll get sciatica that'll make your eyes pop out» rasped the girl on the neighbouring couch. She'd been given the injection much earlier and already knew what contractions were.
The sciatica progressed. I was advised to «breathe like a doggy». I tried to clarify whether I should stick out my tongue and wag my tail while doing so, but at that moment I felt a new symptom of a woman in labour emerge – my eyes were popping out of my head. «Well, finally!» I rejoiced and looked hopefully at Valerianovna, who was holding a syringe of something painkilling at the ready. «Dilation – three centimetres!» proclaimed the midwife, having shoved both her arms into me up to the elbow. I was outraged: «What three centimetres? Are you kidding? By the feel of it there's something like three metres in there, if not more!». Valerianovna stuck a needle into me, and after a while I felt warm and cheerful. «But that's not all!» she winked promisingly. A nurse came up with an accordion at the ready. She smiled and squeaked: «No-shpa-time!», after which she planted the entire contents of the accordion into my right cheek. «OW!» was all I managed to say before breathing again like the neighbour's spaniel slowly dying of obesity. The sciatica flared up in earnest. The girdling pain clouded my mind: at that moment I could only guess at my passport details, and the multiplication table, alas, I'd forgotten entirely. «Prick me, prick me with somethin'…» I moaned. And they kept pricking me with something, not counting the drip, into which the nurse kept adding something new. The intervals between contractions got shorter and shorter, making the pauses between the panting doggies purely symbolic. I began to forget I'd once been a human being. I was already imagining veterinarians, when suddenly the midwife climbed into me up to the elbow again and announced to everyone around: «Dilation five centimetres!». «Oh come on, don't be modest, tell it like it is: five kilometres…» I joked, trying to remember my mother's maiden name. The anaesthesiologist Valerianovna started fussing. The nurse and midwife turned me onto my side, stuck some contraption into my spine and connected a long plastic tube to it, through which Valerianovna sent an infernal mix of medicinal-narcotic substances unavailable to ordinary mortals. A few minutes later I realised I was on a beach. It was as if there'd been no pain at all. In fact, everything below the waist – it was as if none of it had ever existed either. I sighed with relief and stretched sweetly. «Want to hear a joke?» I addressed Valerianovna in a genteel manner. «Right, everything's clear…» she said, casting me a look full of understanding and scepticism at once. «Who wants a joke? Hello! I don't see your hands!» I addressed the others. But they turned out to be busy with another patient whose dilation just wasn't happening. «Listen, give yourself an injection in the spine – you won't regret it!» I advised her. Valerianovna immediately switched on the commerce: «Epidural anaesthesia – only for an extra fee» But I was struck by a fit of generosity, and I made a grand gesture with my left hand, the one free of the drip: «Give her the shot! Money's no problem!». After which everyone, including the woman in labour, fell silent. Maybe I imagined it, but it seemed to me the doctors looked at me with suspicion. «And what do you do… In your free time?» asked a gynaecologist who'd come into the delivery ward on some business of his own but couldn't resist and went to watch how the women were giving birth. «Me? In my free time?» I asked again, – «Sex!». «It shows» smirked the gynaecologist and went off about his business. And I started breathing like a doggy again. «Dilation – seven centimetres!» said the midwife, – «Only two hours have passed… Sweetheart, you've got a speed labour!» «I don't feel a thing» I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. «No-shpa-time!» squeaked the nurse.
At some point I felt an irresistible urge to share my sensations with someone I knew, and started calling everyone one after another. «It's a rush. Definitely a rush!» I shouted into the phone. «Breathe, breathe! The baby needs oxygen!» the doctors shouted at me. «What baby?» I marvelled and then remembered what occasion we'd all gathered here for. «Mum! I'm giving birth!» I shouted into the receiver and again felt the girdling pain, which was getting stronger. «It's wearing off! Your epidural's wearing off!» I shouted, – «More!». Valerianovna gave me more, and I found myself back on the beach. Only now it wasn't just a beach, it was a beach in Goa at dawn after a rave. «Does anyone have anything to drink?» I inquired. «Dilation ten centimetres!» said the midwife, – «That's it, let's go give birth!».
Not without outside help, I stood up. «Excuse me, do you happen to know what this round hairy thing is down THERE?» I asked the midwife with a slurring tongue. «Don't talk nonsense, that's your daughter's head!» At those words it wore off again. Glancing hopefully at Valerianovna, I realised there'd be no encore, and obediently climbed into the special chair. A support group in white coats crowded around. Everyone was gazing happily between my legs. «Well, how's it going down there?» I asked anxiously. Nobody answered. «Push!» commanded the midwife. I tried, and realised I didn't know how to push. Then the midwife bore down on me and pressed on my belly so hard that I gave birth. But, again, I didn't feel a thing. I just lay there and stared wide-eyed at my newborn daughter Sonya. She looked back at me too. From her gaze I understood that she'd also gotten a share of Valerianovna's stuff. Sonya was very serious and silent. Her little legs were folded as if she'd just been sitting in the lotus position. And she was such a confident thundercloud colour. An even blue-burgundy colour. Yes. And a cable was sticking out of her navel. No, it wasn't an umbilical cord, it was a genuine cable, made up of a whole bundle of wires. «The Matrix! The Matrix!» I rejoiced, but immediately caught myself under the questioning looks of the doctors. Yes, never before in my life had I had to get high under the observation of people in white coats!
The midwife distracted me: «Right, attention! Now I'm going to stitch you up a little…» «What? Completely?!» I was horrified, – «But wait! Maybe there's no need for such radical measures… After all, life doesn't end with the birth of a child… Well, you understand me» But the midwife, with a matter-of-fact expression, set to work as if she were sewing on a torn-off button. The support group began to watch her work with curiosity. Valerianovna came over, peered into me and nodded approvingly: «Oh! The men are going to go crazy!». But, noticing the horror on my face, she hastened to reassure me – «In a good way!». And the midwife added: «If you like, I can make you into a girl?». «No thanks, no need. I'd rather – go around as a boy…» I declined.
When I was being wheeled back to the ward on the rattling gurney, they laid the bundle with my Sonya beside me. Such a little bundle. Even though I was shaking from all those drugs and from the ice pack they'd put on my belly, I didn't take my eyes off Sonya. I understood: God exists, if from such monsters as me and the Android, something so pure (drugs that accidentally got into her bloodstream during birth don't count), innocent (she didn't know that, sitting in the belly, she'd been kicking her mum in the liver the whole time) and sweet (the main thing is she shouldn't scream) a child could appear. So there. And before that I used to think there wasn't one.