Elisha Cooper - Crawling: A Fathers First Year

CONTENTS

For Elise

birth

Theres a head sticking out of my best friend. This is insane. Anybody who says this moment is the most precious wonderful thing in the world is delusional. This isnt a miracle, its assault. Id call 911 but were already in a hospital.

I didnt know it would be like this, not even the day before. After Elises water broke in the morning we went for a walk. Elises belly was poking out from her small body like a melon. We hiked up in the hills and looked out at the San Francisco Bay shimmering in the distance. In the afternoon we drove to the hospital and were given a room with a view of the Oakland hills, and backless gowns. This was nice, I thought.

We walked the halls kicking a ball of tinfoil in an improvised game of soccer. As Elises contractions increased we stopped playing soccer and just did laps, my arm on her waist. Wed pass the door with the male doctor inside reading O, The Oprah Magazine, and Elise would not say much and a minute later when we passed the same door (the doctor a few pages further along in O) another contraction would hit, right on time.

Evening became night and night became that time that is neither night nor morning. Elises contractions got big and painful and the nurse didnt like the babys heartbeat. She made hushed calls to the attending physician and Elise was hooked to an IV and given oxygen and painkillers. The mood in the room became desperate. Or, I felt desperate. As Elise curled on her side and closed her eyes I felt her slipping from me. My favorite person in the world lay there humming to herself and I could not reach her. I could only hold her hand and be alone with my worry in the dim light of an anonymous hospital room with the taillights of the early morning traffic on the highway outside slowly blinking past.

It got light. Elise got an epidural, I got a coffee. Our ageless Chinese midwife showed up looking rested and cheerful. I like her, but didnt then. After an hour of checking Elises dilation she said, Okay, feel like pushing? Elise, opening her eyes, said, Yes, please.

Elise pushed and turned red. She pushed more and turned burgundy. I held one of her legs and mopped her brow and tried to give her water out of a bottle whose straw kept popping out and onto the floor. And though I had gone to birthing class and done all the correct things to prepare for this exact moment, I couldnt have felt less competent had I been handed three lively cats and told to juggle them. Elise was muttering and I was saying things like Youre doing great and You call that a push? Well, no, but it crossed my mind. Everything that shouldnt have been crossing my mind was: how the traffic on the highway outside looked bad today, how soft and pillowy the clouds were, how juggling cats would be difficult, how Elise was now the color of a beet.

Maybe I was trying to distract myself from what was happening. Our ageless Chinese midwife was doing the same, bouncing on the big purple birthing ball across the room between pushes in an attempt to distract Elise, who wanted to push all the time.

Time got tight, focused. Elise was yelling like a wounded animal. I saw the head and thought about calling Emergency. Elise was yelling louder and I was holding her leg and saying God knows what and nurses were circling and hands were reaching in and out and twisting this being that seemed to want to stay right where it was, not ready to join us yet. Then out it came, a gangly thing covered in blood. The thing was turned to me and it looked into my eyes with the hugest, most startled eyes I have ever seen and our eyes locked. I thought, I know you.

And in that instant, in the moment when the baby was wrapped and swaddled and brought to Elises chest, there was a sense that all the pain that had been in that room was already being repaired, the night of tension disappearing in a soothing wash of forgetfulness, memory stitched together so that we could inaccurately look back on this experience with fondness. Indeed, a miracle.

Elise was beaming. I rested my face against hers and we looked into the babys eyes. Neither of us said anything for a long time. We were too stunned to remember to check the sex. But as the baby was carried across the room, Elise asked, What is it? and I can still hear a voice saying, almost as an afterthought, Its a girl.

The girl is lying three feet to my right now. Shes in her bassinet, taking a nap next to my desk. Her hair is dark with light highlights. It waves in places, curling at the back of her neck. She has a round belly, a dimple on her chin like me. She just took a bath and is wrapped in a white blanket. Shes making small noises. Her name is Zo.

two becomes three

We live in Berkeley in the hills overlooking the bay. The Pacific Ocean is on the horizon. The hills are lined with winding roads and filled with redwood and eucalyptus trees that cast lots of shade. Steep steps with names like Muir Path and Twain Way cut between the roads. Houses are quirky, wooden Arts and Crafts, and have a way of blending into the trees. Over the hills is the Hayward Fault. If California is separate from the rest of the country, and if the Bay Area is separate from the rest of the state, and if Berkeley is separate from the rest of the bay, then the Berkeley hills are separate from the rest of Berkeley. Its the epicenter of isolation. But its home, for now.

Our apartment is an addition on a large wood-shingled house in the elbow of one of the winding roads. Its one big room with fifteen-foot ceilings, a studio that had been designed for a musician so he could give concerts. Bookcases line two of the walls, though the books arent ours and neither is the furniture. The only furniture we own is the two desks, planks of plywood on sawhorses, where we work. Elise is getting her Ph.D. in psychology at Cal; I write and illustrate childrens books. Across from our desks are floor-to-ceiling windows that open on a garden and a stream. When the windows are open theres no real divide between the inside and the outside and were often chasing hummingbirds back to safety. Its peaceful except for the opera singer across the stream who practices during the day. Things are so peaceful Im sure that Zos cries, echoing through the concert hall and out the open windows, will wake the entire neighborhood.

When Zo came out there was a moment, about thirty seconds, when she made no sound. Weve heard this is normal but I remember thinking then, Come on baby, scream. Then she did, and her hands fluttered as if she were falling backward in open air. We spent the day calling family and friends, drinking champagne, and learning how to breast-feed. Rather, Elise learned how to breast-feed. I just stared at Zo whenever she slept on my chest. She kept both fists in front of her face like a boxer and sometimes startled awake and punched me.

After a night in the hospital we walked to the parking lot, shocked we were being allowed to leave, and drove home. In her first week Zo lowered her fists from her boxing position. She struggled with evenings, though. She bawled and wouldnt take a pacifier. She sucked our arms. There were welts on both our biceps and Elise and I looked like recovering heroin addicts. When even arm-sucking wouldnt calm her, I took Zo for walks.