By Erin Gottwald
The lesson is over.
Technically.
Winnie comes off the ice with all the other students in the Learn to Skate program. The instructors announce it’s the end of class but if they would like to stay for “free” skate, they are welcome to return to the ice. This is Winnie’s second lesson. She is learning basics like falling and getting back up — an intimidating feat in itself. If you’re honest, learning to skate is not much fun: you get bruised and your muscles get battered as they push your skates to slice into the slick ice. Learning to skate is arduous. But you don’t tell her that. Instead, together you watch figure skating and Bruins games on TV. Winnie told you hours ago, “Mama, I want to stay for the free time.” So she gets her six-year-old self right back onto the ice. She falls, she gets up, she wiggles to carve geometrical shapes on the surface of the ice. Every few minutes, she stops in the middle of the ice to watch the older, advanced figure skaters execute a jump or a turn.
You watch and remember she was once inside you. You have attributed all sorts of her characteristics to her behavior in your womb: commitment, stability, focus, determination.
The doctors induced you because the 38-week ultrasound revealed low fluid. You hadn’t even showered that morning and then suddenly they were bringing you in to “have the baby.” Over the course of two days of various stages of labor, Winnie’s heart rate did not waver — it was stable and strong. Meanwhile, your body refused to dilate, refused to present Winnie with any exit. About 36 hours into labor, doctors decided to put an inflating balloon into your cervix (you realize later it’s officially called a Foley Bulb). It assaulted you from the inside, continuously pushing you open. You could sense Winnie’s indifference to having the balloon invade her space. But the expanding balloon was acutely painful for you.
The Foley Bulb fell into the toilet when you went to pee in the middle of the night. The doctors came in to assess your dilation. You were at three centimeters which usually signifies the “early stages of labor,” but this was 40 hours in. They monitored you. Hours later, when you should have been dilating more, you were doing the opposite. All the while, her heart rate remained unaffected.
Eventually, a Caesarean Section was how you were separated. The petite Indian doctor, standing on a stool, exclaimed, “She won’t let go!” Your body shook on the table as she tugged and yanked Winnie out of your split-open body.
Then she was in the world, laying on the table across the room, separate from you.
When Winnie entered the world, she brought with her a sense of battle and a desire to stay until the end.
The lesson continues.
Erin Gottwald holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Bay Path University. At the root of her writing is movement, informed by her decades spent as a professional dancer. Her writing has been published in Yankee Magazine, Snapdragon Journal, Pure Slush Books Literary Anthology and has been selected as a Top Ten Finalist in the Wild Atlantic Writing Awards in Ireland. She lives with her husband and two kids in Brooklyn, NY.
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