Kathleen, Queen of the Desert

Originally published in LLL of New Mexico’s Enchantment, 1985

“Better start boiling water and get some clean sheets—the baby’s coming!” So starts another Hollywood birth, and I’m probably watching it. I never tire of hearing childbirth stories at LLL meetings, so perhaps it should come as no surprise to anyone that I’m such a fan of childbirth scenes in movies and on television shows. I don’t really even watch that much TV, nor do I go to that many movies, but a sixth sense of mine always sniffs out the shows where someone is having a baby.

Hollywood labors, as a rule, are hard and sudden, and usually start during a snowstorm. That way, everybody can fly into a panic and heighten the drama. Deliveries are usually neat and quick, the mothers look rested and beautiful afterward, and the newborns always look at least three months old. But, given all the flaws, the attraction for watching these scenes is that I can empathize, criticize, and relive.

I empathized with the pain and fear of a woman on a “St. Elsewhere” episode who was giving birth on the floor of her apartment. I recognized Lucy’s frustration on a two-part “I Love Lucy” when she announces her labor, saying, “I think this is it,” and everybody goes absolutely bananas, all rushing out to jump into a taxi, leaving her standing in the house. My heart went out to Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn in “Same Time, Next Year” when her waters breaks a month early, and they are both desperately trying to calm each other.

Criticizing dramatization accuracy is fun, too. When Lynda Goodfriend in “Happy Day’s starts labor, she is eating a large banana split and has a contraction that nearly drops her to her knees. “A first contraction is never that hard, “I said smugly, and “I’m sure she won’t keep all that ice cream down!” In “A Farewell to Arms,” Jennifer Jones insists on going to the hairdresser when her labor starts so she’ll look beautiful at the hospital. “Now that is dumb!” I said (and wondered why I hadn’t thought of that). When John-Boy Walton helps Sissy Spacek deliver a baby on an episode of “The Waltons” (during a terrible storm, naturally), good old Sissy brings the baby home astride a donkey about eight hours later. “Nobody’s going to be riding a donkey right after having a baby!” I said.

The best payoff for watching these deliveries, though, is that I can relive my own. Now, granted, on a “Star Trek” episode when Dr. McCoy scans a female alien’s abdomen with a little box and entones, “The baby should be coming anytime now,” I couldn’t identify very much with the obstetrical care! But when the little being did arrive, it was wonderful and charming. And the baby’s dramatic first cry in “Yankee Doodle Dandy” brought tears to my eyes, just as it did when my own sons were born.

I don’t think any of us tires of telling our own labor and delivery stories, and I think most of us are fascinated by the dramatization of childbirth on the silver screen. Okay, so it’s often corny and overdone or inaccurate. But childbirth is the greatest show on earth, and we mothers are the stars. At least until that little nine-month understudy steals the show!