“Oh, there’s the heartbeat!” I couldn’t make much sense of the swirling mass on the screen, but the woman pointed confidently enough that I believed her. What a relief — the heartbeat!
“And there’s the right leg—” The right leg!
“And there we go, that’s the left leg—” Wow, the left leg!
“And there’s—”
The technician suddenly dropped the transducer on the table, hastily wiping the goo off my belly. I caught the trail end of “let me get the doctor” as she ran out the door.
Minutes later, she walked back in, accompanied this time by the handsome doctor I’d seen briefly in the waiting room. The two looked like such a striking couple that I briefly wondered if they’d ever been intimate. It always does seem like attractive people should be paired together, lest a beautiful person end up with a less attractive person and risk diluting those genetics. That would be a waste, of course. But I’d chosen this center specifically for its reputation as a clean, professional enterprise, and I doubted its employees would engage in something so murky as a workplace entanglement. Oh well.
The doctor took a minute to inspect the sonogram that had given my technician such pause. “So, Marie.” He rolled the swivel chair from its corner to my bedside, sitting down to approximate some sense of doctor-patient intimacy despite none existing. “There’s no cause for alarm just yet, but this sonogram does show some extremely interesting characteristics.”
“Oh?” I asked, waiting patiently for him to elaborate.
“Well, you see,” he obliged, “it seems that your baby has eight legs!”
“Hm!”
“Yes, yes. And where we normally expect to see two eyes, we’ve instead identified six!”
“So my baby has extra body parts! Kind of like an appendix? Or the spleen?”
“Precisely. The oddest thing, though, is the presence of two distinct bulbous segments of the baby’s body; pincer-like protrusions near the mouth; and a rather elongated heart. Now, we are not in the business of making accusations, but in the interest of medical diagnosis, I’d like to ask you a question. During the course of your pregnancy, have you engaged in any recreational spider venom or consumed any off-market spider chitlin supplements?”
My heart skipped a beat. I’d heard the old wives’ tales, stories about a cousin of a friend of a boyfriend, but certainly nothing that indicated any real risk of a chitlin pill here or there. And hadn’t that wellness website actually raved about the benefits of prenatal venom shots?
“I see,” he said gently. My silence had spoken for me. “You mustn’t blame yourself. Cases like yours are certainly rare, but growing in number. We ourselves have performed a few arachno-parturitions at this very clinic. Despite the abnormalities, we will do our very best to assure the safety of both you and your child during the birthing process.”
“Thank you doctor,” I cried, clutching his outstretched hand, clinging to the hope that perhaps what he promised could come true.
Most mothers will tell you that giving birth numbers among the most painful things she has gone through. Most mothers only have to squeeze out a 6 pound baby with two arms and two legs.
My darling creature clocked in at 15 pounds, 5 ounces — it took 17 hours and five nurses to get through it. One nurse was occupied with wiping up the blood that spurted out with each push, while two others worked on making sure my baby’s legs didn’t get tangled up on the way out. The labor took enough of my concentration that I could ignore the crowd of protesters—zoophilia truthers, PetSmart conspiracists, moth conservationists—that had gathered outside the delivery room.
Most mothers will tell you that giving birth was one of the most painful things she’s experienced, but that it was all worth it to hold their baby in their arms. When the nurses finally clipped the umbilical strands and handed me my sweet baby, I felt the same euphoria promised to me by all those hordes of mothers. At last, the fruit of my labor—the embodiment of all that I could give to the world, to everything good I could offer the future. I had never felt so triumphant.
Now that Lydia is a few months old, I’ve joined a Mommy & Me group. I sense that the other mothers feel sorry for me. Their husbands pick them up in glistening Cadillacs, and as they drive away they look at me with such pity in their eyes. They tell me that married life isn’t all that great, as if to make me feel better instead of deeply sorry for what they’ve settled for. They tell me of the rarity of multiple arachno-births, and assure me that if I tried again and stayed off the venom injections I could have a baby like theirs. But doesn’t my Lydia clap along to the songs just as well as their children?
I know what will happen when I die. I will be 83 and laying in my hospital bed. I will be resting under a warm silk blanket (Lydia’s creation, of course) when my daughter comes for her daily visit. She will fluff my pillows, bring fresh flowers, and relay the latest adventures of her three children. I will listen intently, in awe of what she has grown into, and I will tell her that raising her has been the greatest honor of my life. Then, when I say that it is time for me to go, she will weep from all six eyes. She will rest her cephalothorax gently next to me, and she will hug me tightly with all eight of her legs. And I will feel sorry for all the mothers who did not get the chance to be hers.
omg Michelle!! I feel like the CIRCE influence is detectable 👀
omg Michelle!!! I feel like the CIRCE influence is detectable 👀