Caught between the women I love

A laboring wife & shingles-ridden mother

“AhhhhhhAAAAAHHHHHHHHHOooohhhhhh,” My wife wailed from the bathtub.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” My mother groaned into the phone. 

Both of the women I loved most in the world were suffering, and there was nothing I could do. My wife’s contractions had intensified, and she was beyond relief. There was only enduring until she pushed the baby out. My mother had a bad case of shingles, and in her delirious search for pain relief, she had driven to the pharmacy for something to apply. I could hear people in the background asking each other if “that woman seemed okay,” and cursed the fact my mother had left the house at all.

It was just my luck that my mother’s shingles would align with my wife’s labor. It would have been enough to watch the love of my life moan and contort with anguish. It would have been enough to know my mother was alone and struggling while she managed a wretched illness.

They seemed to be in tune with each other; as the contractions came closer together, the shingles became all-consuming.

I’d spent hours researching ways to support my wife, but nothing we’d tried had helped. She looked at me in between contractions, somewhat agonized, and said: “There’s no relief. There’s no taking a break. I just need to get through this. I know it’s hard for you to watch, so leave if you must. I don’t need you right now.”

I left her to answer the call from my mother, and was met with a different expression of pain. Similar to my wife, my mother had tried many things and had not found any relief. I’d spent hours researching ways to support my mother, but I hadn’t found any solution that looked promising. 

Herbs my wife harvested a couple days before labor

Both of the women I hold dearest were suffering, and it seemed like there was nothing I could do. I felt helpless. 

But, I realized that it wouldn’t do neither my mother nor wife any good if I just crawled into a hole and grieved their pain, so I found something to do, even if it seemed insignificant in the scope of what they were experiencing. 

I’ve had shingles before, and I remember its pain well. I remember how difficult it is to relax when the body burns with it, and because of its relationship to our nerves, relaxation is necessary to healing. 

“Breathe with me, ma,” I said as I guided my mother through deep breaths to distract her as well as encourage her to calm herself. She hung up the phone to try sleeping, and I returned all of my focus to my wife. 

I felt horrible that I couldn’t take away her discomfort. But, I could ensure that she would return to a clean house after delivering our child, so I got to work. After waking from an hour’s nap at 12:30am, which had been my only hour of sleep in the nearly 24 hours that my wife had been laboring, I stayed busy. Laundry, dishes, tidying; anything I could do to fix up the house, I did. 

While I worked, I reflected on my position. My own suffering paled in comparison to labor and shingles, but listening to the love of my life make noises I’d never heard before while my mother went out of her mind was its own kind of torment. On top of that, I was supposed to have a child soon! 

My son was born during the first storm we’d had in months. This picture was taken during a storm a week after his birth.

At 4:30am, I called our midwife, who told us to meet her at the birthing center in twenty minutes. 48 minutes after we arrived, my son was born and my wife’s pain was over. Truly - she had a seamless delivery, and the pains of pregnancy and birth ended there.

My mother’s pain relief was not as swift, but it was numbed with the joy of becoming a grandmother. She woke up from the worst night of her shingles to learning our child was born, and had something to celebrate.

As my mother likes to say: “What a life.”