Happy Mother’s Day, readers! In honor, I’m recounting my first brush with motherhood today. Enjoy and I hope it makes you laugh!

Miss D. was born in December, in a town where I didn’t have any friends. I gave up a lot for love: my impeccably decorated condominium, a career that I loved, my comfortable city. But that man. Oh. How could any girl say no? So I left it all behind. My mother thought I was insane–who sacrifices everything on a whim?   But I just knew.

Marriage came fast. So did motherhood.  I got pregnant so easily I was stunned–was this really all there was to it?

Of course, first-born didn’t stay easy. She made me sick and peevish for five months, and on a day in December–on her due date, in fact–she came in the middle of a blizzard. My parents vowed to fight ice and wind to get there in time, even though it was folly to do so.

The roads were treacherous, just on the short ride to the hospital, and I called them from the hospital lobby, telling them not to bother, but I was alone, walking the hallways, trying to dilate.  The agony seemed excruciatingly fast and hard, and as I crouched in a corner near the telephone, urging my parents to stay home, I knew they wouldn’t. Because I was alone.

Hubs was nowhere in sight–he was back out in the snowy night, trying to find childcare for Awesome Stepkid Ro in a town we hadn’t been in long.

I was hunkered there, bent over and clutching my belly, propped against a lobby wall, when an enormous African American woman, with two adorable children at her side entered the hospital, took one look at me, put her hands on her hips and said indignantly, “Girl? Where is your man?” And suddenly, it really did hit me. I might have to do this all by myself.

What if Mama and Daddy got stuck in the snow, or worse, in an accident? What if nobody could care for a 7-year old boy for God-knows-how-long this was going to take? I would have to do this myself. I really, really, did not want to do this by myself.

I was in the bathtub, naked and fat, thrashing like a freshly caught trout when my parents arrived. Daddy took one look at me had to leave the room. Mama sat on the edge of the tub, watching me heave back and forth.

When the nurse came back, and took a look at me, she quickly got me out of the bathtub, took a peek and said, “OhmyGod. You’ve gone from a 3 to a 10 in, like, 20 minutes. I haven’t even called the anesthesiologist yet. Don’t cough, don’t laugh, don’t do anything.”  She ran from the room on her stocky legs.

She shouldn’t have bothered calling the anesthesiologist. That baby came down the birth canal like a Russian on a luge. My husband barely made it before Miss D debuted, pissed off  and wailing, small eyes rolling around the room, as if wondering, “Where the Hell am I and who is to blame for this?”

“Where’s the champagne?” I hissed at my husband–giving birth without anesthesia calls for champagne, dammit.

His eyes widened. “I’ll go get some.”  Wise man.

“This is a tiny one,” the nurse by the scale said. “A little over 5 pounds. Apgar’s good, though. Awww, look,” she said to another nurse. “She has a tiny mongolian spot on her butt.”

Then the bleeding began. And continued. And continued. The nurse wearing the new white Keds was not amused when my blood engulfed them. I apologized and promised to buy her a new pair.

“The placenta’s attached,” the doctor said harshly to my mother. “We need to get her into the ER now.”  She looked me directly in the eye. “I need to tell you that this usually requires a hysterectomy. I’m sorry.”

Inexplicably, I started laughing. “Well, this is the perfect time to tell me. Because I’m never doing this again. Go for it.” Mama looked stricken.

“Can I just hold her once before I go?” I asked.

For a brief moment, they put my little, warm monkey girl on my chest. And then she promptly shit all over me.

Motherhood had begun.

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