#labor tw

Precipitous.

It's a fitting word. It's the cliffs at Black Beach, California where the rocks drop twenty jagged feet into clear blue water. It's her bare wet feet and the balance and the moment she looked over the edge. It's the breath she took before jumping, stretching out all her limbs like a starfish, and dropping. Freefall. Unstoppable.

It's labor.

This isn't written about in advice columns, or played out on screen. Labor doesn't announce itself at the doorstep. The back pain she's struggled with all this last trimester hides a multitude of symptoms; is the symptom. And her water doesn't break right away, her contractions don't build slowly. There are no Braxton Hicks. She's three weeks early, she's alone when it starts, and, as her father would say:

"Give it what you got."

She's out by the old chapel Cage rebuilt taking pictures when it happens. When the back pain she's been rubbing at with increasing annoyance twists suddenly inward and something unspools inside of her and -

Oh!

Oh, fuck!

It's a contraction. It's pain squeezing her tighter and tighter until the camera drops from her hands. And when it loosens, when she can breath again, she thinks: that's fine. Just one. One strong contraction. Nothing to -

And then the second piggybacks the first.

Reception is a little spotty this far off the road. There's a voice in her head that sounds like her father, like her older brothers, like a drop of reason in a bucket of insanity. Not advised. But then, she didn't think she'd go early. When in all her life has she ever even been punctual? It's one day late on car insurance with an apology and a promise. It's two hours late to a party with a smile and a story.

But then, this isn't her entrance.

Panic makes a nest in her chest for a moment, scratches at her heart. She rests back against the bark of a willow tree and lets it play out. There's no use fighting it. The baby's awake, kicking at a rib urgently when a third contraction ripples through her. "Yeah, yeah," she tells them, breathless. She sweeps a hand from breastbone to hip. "I'm afraid too."

Of what's happening, yes. Of motherhood, surely. But of all the rest too. Age and boredom and bills and vulnerability. It's the pulse under her skin that she's been ignoring. The old unspoken fear, rare as it could be, that what happened to her mother could happen to her.

But honestly, fuck that.

She pushes herself from the tree and walks best as she can down the beaten path toward her car. She's left her backpack, her water bottle, and her camera behind clutching only at the phone in her hand and waiting for those signal bars. It's a journey made in broken acts. Halted by the contractions that take hold and squeeze. And damn if those classes don't mean shit. She can breathe. She does breathe. But none of that helps when she's being funneled downward. So she curses. Lot's of fucks and shits and then some more inventive things that would make her grams blush. She kicks at a fallen log, half bent over when one particularly strong one takes her under, and that helps too.

She thinks of birth playlists and the classical music some women luxuriate in - she thinks of epidurals and the sweetness of a warm bath right now. She thinks for one horrible moment that she's not going to make it out of the woods. She trips, cuts her knee open on the bits and brambles of the forest floor, and screams. Frustrated. Primal. Her throat aching from it. If there are hikers up this early, before the forecast showers they'd hear her. But there's no answer except the birds - scared mute for a moment - and then swooping back in to fill the silence. There's no choice though. She pulls herself up and keeps walking.

The hike out to the chapel took thirty minutes, the return trip takes just over an hour. She's coming out to the gravel parking lot when those bars flicker back and she could cry with relief. She's in no state to drive so she dials 911 as she drops onto a large rock near her car. The operator is a sweet, older woman that stays on the line with her for the twenty minutes it takes to get an ambulance out there.

"You got a name, Lucie?" she asks, talking her through a contraction.

"Several." She bites out. "Thinking I got to-" she grunts and the woman waits it out with her, "-see them you know? Got to see if they look like a Piper or a Ziggy."

"It's a good day this one. Great birthday."

"Yeah?"

"National Chocolate and Peanut Butter Day."

It makes her laugh, makes her unclench her fist just a touch. "You look that up?"

"I did. You want to know who they'll be sharing it with?" She does and the woman says "Woody Harrelson."

"Sweet."

"And Kathryn Hahn."

Lou huffs, tips her head back into the sun. "Legend."

The baby twists, moving fast beneath her hand. She almost can read their agitation. Wishes she could tell them it's going to be alright but her water breaks before the ambulance arrives and she starts to hyperventilate.

"It's okay Lucie. They'll be there any minute. Can you hear the sirens?" She does. "Your going to be just fine, mama."

Things move fast after that. She's loaded into the back of the ambulance and strapped to monitoring equipment. She watches the squiggles of her baby's heartbeat to distract from the pain, from the contractions that start piling up one on top of the other. This was supposed to be a long process. Hours upon hours, those were the words. But it's not. She asks is something is wrong, her voice thin with worry. Someone holds her hand. Someone else asks if they should call her partner. She laughs, tells them no, then thinks of her siblings. She pulls up the group chat and shakily types out two words.

Hospital. Now.

It's not eloquent. It's not joking. And she's speeding down the country road she learned to drive on when the urge to push hits. She thinks she should have called Ari. She thinks he should be here. She doesn't want to be alone for this. But then, she isn't really. She hasn't been alone for near on nine months.

In the end, none of her siblings will make it there on time. In the end, she doesn't even make it there on time.