The new Matrix movie will be out next week. I’m excited about it, and it makes me think of childbirth.
I was 28 when the movie came out. I was also fully pregnant. Aside from developing a moderate addiction to KFC and increased trips to the bathroom at the bank I worked at, my pregnancy with Daniel was easy peasy.
It was nineteen hundred and ninety nine. We could have found out the gender with systems more advanced than the whole “holding a ring on string above your belly” thing. But we chose not to. There’s so few genuine “where did that come from?” surprises left in life that I wanted to capitalize on this one. When my baby “turned on me” in the last 2 weeks of my pregnancy, I automatically assumed it was a girl. You know how passive aggressive girls can be (bwha ha).
At one of those weekly ob-gyn appointments, Dr. Desoto popped his head up from,…near the stirrups… and told me to get dressed and meet him in his office. Creepy.
“Your baby has turned breech. Do you know what that means?”
“Yea. Feet first.” Duh. I’d paid attention in class and read roughly a million books. C’mon Doc.
“Yes. But what it also means is c-section.”
I felt kind of dumb. Maybe I should have brought a handler to prevent me from missing such basic cues.
He asked me what day I wanted to have my baby born. I oddly did not want to pick a birthdate so I asked, “What day is good for you?” I also low-key didn’t want to chose a day that maybe accidentally got in the way of golf or something. Then maybe he’d be cranky as he cutting me open.
A couple days later, my parents, my in-laws, and my grandpa all showed up to see me waddle down to the hospital hall.
The nurse told me, “Your anesthisologist can’t hear well. Speak loudly if something seems wrong.” Da fuq?!
Brian was able to go in to surgery with me. It seems like there’s testing to see what kind of trainwreck you’ll be about your bride being cut open before they decide how much you get to see.
After a few moments, he was allowed to stand up and watch the entire thing. His head kept going back and froth between both sides of the vision-blocking sheet, “Are you sure you can’t feel that?!” I was sure. I was dead from the neck down. “You’re sure?! How can you not feel that?!” The marvels of modern medicine, that’s how.
His version of the story is quite more graphic. With elements like a crank that holds your body open, my guts out, and doctors having to push on my chest because the baby kept squirming away from their grasp. Meanwhile, I’m just a head laying there. “Hey guys, what’s going on?”
“It’s a boy. It’s definitely a boy.”
Oohs, ahhs, and excitement ensued. The little human I grew was placed next to my head for me to see and have pictures with. Obviously, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But then he had to go do new baby things and I had to be put back together.
And this is where the Matrix ties in.
Turns out, what was a life altering experience for me was what the doctors called a Wednesday. I’m laying there, mind spinning, sad that I can’t be with Daniel. Meanwhile, they’re having watercooler chat.
“I watched the Matrix last night.”
“How was it?
“It was really interesting.”
Stich, stich, staple, staple. More movie chat. “Do they know I can hear them?”
I didn’t watch the Matrix immediately. I was very pleasantly busy with the world’s most perfect baby.
But when I did rent it later (probably as a VHS), it blew my mind. Obviously, I wanted to be bad ass like Trinity. But what stuck with me more was that silly moment when Neo can suddenly see through all the fake and see the “code” that runs the world he lives in. That is a superpower I’d love to have. Maybe it’s because all the social working, but the ability to really know what’s going on and be able to impact it sounds perfect.
This new Matrix movie could suck. I hope it doesn’t. I hope that it’s also inspires thought and conversation. Maybe even conversation over a lucky mom who’s also just had the world’s most perfect baby.
Thanks for reading!
Bifocals and Barbells 