The Story of My Birth

When Mama Lai discusses her ducklings with other Chinese parents, she becomes engaged in an intense competition with other parents over whose children were the greatest disappointments, the winner being the parent who had to sacrifice the most so their children could grow up to be normal, functioning adults.    

Mama Lai is quite skilled in this type of social and cultural combat and her victory is really a demonstration of her love and devotion to her children.  As the oldest of the brood and the first to enter adulthood, I'm quite accustomed to being collateral damage to this odd custom.

Mama Lai loves to start with the story of my birth, the grand beginning to an epic story of failure and misfortune:

"You were the worst of my 3 children.  I had to wait 10 days for you.  And then when the pain started, your father was on the graveyard shift and wanted to take a shower before he would take me to the hospital.  And then I waited all day for you and the pain was unbearable. My eyeballs were rolling into the back of my head.  I tell you it is a pain that you have never felt in your life.  And then they give you a pain drug which causes your head to feel like it's going to explode.  And then they tell me that you're not in the right position to come out...."

And at some point she gets to a part where she fainted and how I wouldn't stop crying when I was finally brought into the world, how weeks after she felt sick, and how for months she barely knew what sunshine looked like trapped in a zombie-like sleeplessness.  And then she will always end with a scathing review of natural birth:

"Stupid American propaganda about the benefits of natural childbirth.  It was so trendy to do your birth like the old days because it was less trauma for the baby.  How about my trauma?  My body was never the same and they have you do those stupid exercises -- 'elevator up, elevator down' as if that really helps." 

[Note: please look up Kegel if you're confused about the exercises.]

And after she horrifies her captive audience on how my natural birth compromised her body, she will turn to me and sweetly say:

"See, this is how much a mother loves her child.  We go through that pain and we still torture ourselves for you.  We human beings are so weird. I can't wait for you to see what that feels like. "