FTlwo hundred thousand humans were born on f June 12, 1983 and this is the story of one of X them. His name is Kabengo. At the time, the mother was 33 years old, it was her first birth, she knew she was pushing the envelope. The father was 31, he couldn’t believe this was really happening. Kabengo just wanted to get out. MEETING ? * DID M O T HAPPEN, Xx ii • • ■ t THIS Let me out of here, he said that morning and gave a kick within the embryotic sack, punching his mother’s kidneys. She wet the bed. It woke her up. My water has broken, was her immediate assumption. My wife Loreli thinks she is the Queen of the Universe. In fact, she looks like an Amazon. My name is Nick Diamond and I’m a very lucky guy. Salt Lake City, Utah, is a unique kind of place for an Amazon Queen to be waking up but there it was, all around. The sun streamed in through the very large windows and French balcony doors of our cheap, high-ceilinged, upstairs apartment. Outside the city was sleeping on a beautiful summer Sunday morning—this state of repose suits Salt Lake very well. Loreli heaved her body over like a watermelon and levered herself up on one elbow to a sitting position, then stood up, six feet tall and a hundred and ninety pounds. It must have been the bed bouncing back that woke me up. “We’re going to have a baby,” she said. Then she called the Utah Women’s Health Center. They said they were occupied until noon and asked her how far apart her contractions were. “What contractions?” Loreli said. She was very calm. She was in no pain and it was six o’clock in the morning. When in doubt take a bath was Loreli’s general rule for ambiguous situations, and so she did. “What’s this you’re trying to tell me,” said Loreli. “Sue Barton’s very competent,” said Dr. John. “She’s performed several births already you know. She’s already licensed in Alaska where the first birth she assisted at was a home birth. I’m saying I am out of here in the morning. I am going home to Ashland, Oregon. I am history, sister. Tonight is my going away party and I know, I have a strong feeling, that this being your first birth and you the Amazon that you are, there will be an interminable hangup, I just know it, and ruin my party. Besides, on my way out, it’s a way to flip- off this block-headed state of Zion. J’t was a long slow quiet afternoon. We sat on the front lawn sanding the baby crib. The way to do it is hold up the piece of frame you are working on with one hand, sand with the other and peer through the bars. We took pictures of each other. I was thinking, I don’t want to see myself behind bars. Loreli got her first real contraction. “Ooooh,” she said, “kind of takes your breath away.” By 5:30 the contractions were coming at regular five-minute intervals except when they weren’t. “This is not clockwork,” I said to Loreli, but we called the Birthing Center anyway and Sue Barton came to check Loreli’s progress. After all that time and serious conDR. JOHN WAS SUGGESTING WE PERFORM A CRIMINAL ACT. I WOULD BE AN ACCOMPLICE TO THE CRIME. LORELI WOULD BE THE WILLING VICTIM AND KABENGO THE UNWITTING CRIMINAL, GUILTY OF ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO THE WORLD. I got up and had a ritual last breakfast as a free man—Spam and eggs. I packed up my backpack and got Loreli’s big bag ready to go, full of tapes and books and changes of clothing. We planned on hiking to the Birthing Center and spending the day like a day at the beach. Then we went back to bed. I unplugged the phone so we could sleep. Afew hours later we were up again and ready to go. Loreli clumped downstairs to nip a rosebud—to have something to look at when it really hurt—but immediately came clumping up again, laughing. Dr. John was outside in his truck, concerned. They thought we had been run over or gotten lost or had an emergency. They had been waiting for us. Dr. John was not really a doctor, he was technically a nurse-midwife, but his very demeanor let you know in every way that he was up to the situation and a cool capable hand and could be an M.D. if he wanted to but was just not all that fond of golf. Dr. John whisked Loreli off to the Birthing Center where they tested and proved that, no, the crystals did not form, therefore her amniotic sack had not burst but her mucous membrane was leaking. She was only dilated three centimeters. That meant that sometime within the next 36 hours we could expect birth. “Don’t call us again,” Dr. John said, “until the contractions are coming five minutes apart like clockwork.” And whisk, in the little Japanese pick-up truck with the Oregon plates, he swept her back to the apartment. It was on the way there that he first suggested the idea to Loreli— why don’t we have a home birth? Well of course that had been our original intention before it was explained to us that midwives in Utah could be licensed either for home birth or for hospital and clinic births—not both. Choose one. We did. We’d been assigned a student midwife, Sue Barton, at the University Hospital Birthing Center, and were resigned to a perfectly sterile birth experience. trading she had only dilated to four centimeters. Pretty soon Dr. John showed up carrying your basic black extra-large size doctor’s bag. It rested inobtrusively but with quiet authority on the table by the bed. What did he have in that bag? Only all the vital contents of a modern surgical operating room. What do you say, Dr. John suggested to Sue, we have the baby here? Although he had successfully officiated at nearly a thousand births, Dr. John was not licensed to perform home births in the State of Utah. Sweet Sue Barton was certainly not sanctioned for such activity, she was just trying to get licensed at all in Utah. Dr. John was suggesting we perform a criminal act. He and Sue would be co-complicitors. I would be an accomplice to the crime. Loreli would be the willing victim and Kabengo the unwitting criminal, guilty of illegal entry into the world. It’s what we all wanted but we responded with jokes and nervous laughter. We kept going back and forth. We waffled. All the way up to the critical moment we pretended we were going to do the right thing, but the allure of an actual, natural, home birth was undeniable. “Our ace in the hole is you guys don’t have a car,” Dr. John pointed out. “We’re not going to have this baby till eleven or so. Instead of hanging out at the Birth Center I can be at the party. You guys keep me posted. I could call this turkey in over the phone.” At this point I remembered to turn on the tape recorder: Sue: Well whadayou think, Dr. John? Dr. John: I think one way we could to it is that if you agreed, um, on a friendly basis to stick around, and I sanctioned it. You’d be covered. Sue: But I wouldn’t if you’re not here. Dr. John: You would be covered on your own—just on your own recognizance. Sue: What’s that supposed to mean? (Nervous laughter—Silence) C an d ac e Bie n em an Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 5
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