Repressed Memory

I have been in bed for the last 45 minutes, trying to fall asleep.  I was almost there, when suddenly, a memory which I seriously think I had been blocking out of my mind for the last four months came to surface.  I feel compelled to share it.

Four months ago, I took the kids to San Antonio, Texas, in the hopes of being present during the birth of my best friend's daughter.  She was born at a freestanding birth center run by midwives.  Unfortunately, her birthday was almost two weeks after we returned back to Switzerland.

Because I was potentially going to be present for the birth, the kids and I went with my friend Leta to one of her prenatal appointments at the birth center. 

A note on birth centers:  (I love birth centers, by the way)  They tend to be very minimalist, serene, silent, peaceful places, filled with the gentle smell of unscented candle wax moving through the three states of matter, and occasionally the sort of silence that comes right after someone stops writing on parchment with a quill.  They are a testament to the beauty and sacredness of birth. 

However, they should really have a disclaimer on the door, "Pregnant ladies:  Enjoy the minimalism, peacefullnes, serenitiy, and silence, because when you walk out of here with your baby, you will never experience these things again."

So you can imagine, taking my children into the birth center was sort of like releasing bulls in a China closet.  But we did our best, and at least 50% of my children remained calm and quiet, as usual for my kids.  During the more "intimate" parts of the exam, the kids and I stepped into the waiting area, where there was a basket of toys and children's books.  All was well and good, but... inevitably, somebody had to pee.  Ok, I admit, it was me.

Do you have small children?  So you are aware that peeing is a group activity.  The two kids and I all filed into the small bathroom in the birth center, and I tried to accomplish my task as quickly as possible.

Do you have small children?  So you are aware that obstetricians' and midwives' bathrooms always contain random cups full of other people's pee, just waiting for the appropriate member of the staff to analyze it. 

I really feel like I could end the post here, as I think you can all see where this is going, but I'll go ahead and finish it, for therapeutic reasons.

I was sitting on the potty, doing my thing.  I had a firm grip on Ivy, who was attempting to unlock the bathroom door and escape, mom's dignity be damned.  So far, par for the public bathroom course.

Normally well-behaved Eliot took a sudden interest in the neon red medical waste box hanging on the wall.  With visions of heroin laced hypodermic needles and HIV soaked cotton balls dancing in my imagination, I made a split-second decision.  I let go of Ivy to wrench his prying fingers away from the box.  There was almost certainly panicked yelling involved.

Ivy took her freedom, and, instead of making a run for it, she suddenly noticed the sample cup of some other pregnant woman's pee on a table specially provided just for sample-holding.

She grabbed the cup.  The cup began to tip.  She was knocking a cup of someone else's pee onto herself.

Time really seems to slow down in these moments, doesn't it?

I took advantage of the strange slow-time worm hole we had entered and snatched the tumbling cup from the air.  The time-space continuum snapped back into place.  A wrestling match ensued, during which Ivy and I were both copiously splashed with some random person's urine. 

Luckily, the random person in question had left a generous sample, and I was able to save a respectable quantity.  I seriously did not want to have to explain to the other woman in the waiting room why she needed to go pee again.  What is the social protocol in this situation?  Would I need to buy her a bottle of water?  Reassure her that her wonderful baby would never grow up to become a feral lab monkey like mine did?

Having some stranger's urine splashed all over you and your toddler is sort of awkward.

Having to discuss the situation with the stranger who produced the urine would be more awkward.

So I suppressed what was about to be a very high pitched scream followed by vomiting, and got to work instead.

I sterilized Ivy and I as best I could.  I think I pinned Eliot to the wall with my foot to keep him away from the medical waste box while I scrubbed Ivy and me down.  (Why don't midwives keep wire brushes in their bathrooms?)

I used about 30 paper towels to clean up all evidence, and then we tranquilly walked back into the waiting room and sat down. Personal hygiene standards were completely violated, but socially awkward crisis was averted.

And a few days later, I somehow completely blocked the entire event from my memory.