What an exhilarating day! I’ve never been in actual labor (my three fabulous kids are all adopted) until today. The pain is excruciating (especially without drugs, which I managed to forgo until 4:45 p.m. when I finally gave in to a glass of Oyster Bay at sunset)… but (and I know, I know, this sounds cliché) it’s a good kind of pain.

Like the pain that my brilliant massage therapist puts on me twice a month when I’m back home in Memphis. (I miss you, Tammy!)

Like the pain that you feel when you’re pushing yourself to exercise just a little harder or just a little longer than yesterday. (I miss my elliptical. Well, not really. I love walking on the beach.)

So, today I read more about the glorious begetting (thanks for the reminder, David Lyons) that happened in the Old Testament, as I continued reading The Red Tent, which I bought at Sundog Books in Seaside earlier this week (yes, Stacy, I bought it from an indie store). (WHO KNEW there was so much begetting in the Old Testament? I hadn’t read it for many years….)

And then I shut myself up inside the Red Tent for hours and I PUSHED. This baby is getting ready to bust out of the womb. Yes. But to calm down my breathing during the contractions, I read some of Beth Ann Fennelly’s poetry (if you haven’t read Tender Hooks, Great With Child, and Unmentionables, get them NOW) to help me through a difficult transition:

“And Lord did I push, for thee more hours
I pushed, I pushed so hard I shat,
Pushed so hard blood vessels burst
in my neck and in my chest, pushed so hard my asshole turned inside-out like a rosebud.”

Isn’t that a brilliant image? (I warned you that things get messy inside the Red Tent, didn’t I?)

So, even though I deleted about 500 words from the work-in-progress today, I added another 1500 or so. But mainly, I figured out how the little bugger is going to get out of the birth canal. Head first. Hell yeah.

A good day in the tent. I might even sneak out tonight and go over to Rosemary Beach for an art show. Have a great weekend, everyone.