The Director (Chicago Bratva 1)

To have our own fat, happy, adorable baby at the end of it.

“Hi, I’m Lucy,” I say, kicking myself for sounding every inch the stiff, frigid lawyer.

“I’m Ravil,” he cuts in, like he realizes I don’t know what else to say.

Svetlana fires up her computer and goes through a Powerpoint on proper diet during pregnancy. It’s basically the same checksheet she left with me on Tuesday.

Then she starts talking about birthing techniques and baby positioning. How important it is to have the baby head down, face down for the birth and what we can do toward the end of our pregnancies to ensure that happens, like crawling on our hands and knees, or doing handstands in a swimming pool.

Part of me wants to roll my eyes and blow this all off as a bunch of hippie nonsense, but the other part of me can believe there might be some old wisdom here, passed down through the ages through women like Svetlana, before the time when doctors took over births and giving birth in hospitals became the normal thing.

That doesn’t mean I want to forego the hospital birth. Lord knows, I want the epidural and the oxygen and everything else that might be necessary to keep me and my baby safe. Especially considering my age.

Svetlana puts on a video of a home birth. I’m a little shocked at first to see a pregnant woman fully naked on her hands and knees on a bed.

Moaning.

She circles her hips and sways from knee to knee as her birth partner strokes her back.

“He is using very light touch, making figure-eights on her back,” Svetlana says in her Russian accent. “This helps her relax.” The woman’s moans get louder.

“She’s having a contraction. See how she doesn’t stop breathing? Instead she lets out a low sound. This low sound helps relax the pelvic floor. What the mouth does, the pelvic floor does. Relax your mouth, relax the pelvis. Baby comes out.”

I’m embarrassed watching it. It seems like such a private moment, and yet here we all are, intruding on it, watching the poor woman struggle through the most intimate of acts. “I can’t believe she let someone videotape this,” I mutter.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Jane pipes up. “You think you’re going to care who sees you give birth or sees you naked, but when the moment comes, none of that really matters. You’re willing to share it because it’s beautiful and natural and your baby is a miracle.”

John squeezes her closer to him. “That’s right,” he agrees. “Jane even let my mother in the room.”

“It’s okay if you want it private, too,” Svetlana interjects. “Your comfort is the only thing that matters.

The couple on the screen change position. She squats on the floor in front of the bed, her partner sitting on the bed, supporting her beneath the armpits.

A woman—Christ, it’s Svetlana, herself!—sits in front of her, hands outstretched. Svetlana speaks to the woman in Russian. A dark head appears, and we all gasp. In the next few seconds, shoulders appear, then the rest of the baby slips out.

“Oh!” Carrie covers her mouth with her hand, tears in her eyes.

I’m not feeling it, but maybe I’m too shocked by the whole scene. I sneak a peek at Ravil. He is also unmoved.

Svetlana puts on another video. “This is a water birth. I know some of you are considering it.” She darts a look at me.

Like hell we are.

“Waterbirth was pioneered in the 1960’s by Igor Charkovsky in Russia to reduce or eliminate birth trauma to the baby. It became popular in Russia in the 1980’s. I have assisted one hundred and twenty-nine waterbirths,” she claims proudly. “I think you will see the appeal when you watch the video.”

A pregnant woman is in a giant plexiglass tub, like a whale in an aquarium—totally on view to the camera and audience. Her head and shoulders are out of the tub, and her husband strokes her neck and shoulders, murmuring to her in Russian.

She moans and holds her belly. You can literally see it tighten, the muscles squeezing the baby down and out.

It goes on for a little while—long enough that I start to wonder how much longer we have to watch and then, suddenly, the baby’s head appears. Svetlana reaches her hand into the tub, not to catch, but to gently massage a circle on the baby’s head. There’s no shouting or yelling like in the movies. Svetlana and the birth partner speak in murmurs, the mother moans in a low, guttural tone.

The rest of the baby slips out. Still, Svetlana doesn’t catch him. She lets him gently float a moment while the mother cries her tears of joy.

It’s the mother who scoops the baby up and out of the water to hold against her chest, and only then does Svetlana nudge in to surreptitiously hold a stethoscope to the baby’s back while the parents weep with joy.