{"id":90,"date":"2007-01-01T15:47:24","date_gmt":"2007-01-01T23:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2007\/01\/a-star-delivers\/"},"modified":"2007-01-01T15:47:45","modified_gmt":"2007-01-01T23:47:45","slug":"a-star-delivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2007\/01\/a-star-delivers\/","title":{"rendered":"A Star Delivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published in LLL of New Mexico\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/em> Enchantment, 1985<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Better start boiling water and get some clean sheets\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So starts another Hollywood birth, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m such a fan of childbirth scenes in movies and on television shows. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I empathized with the pain and fear of a woman on a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153St. Elsewhere\u00e2\u20ac\u009d episode who was giving birth on the floor of her apartment. I recognized Lucy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frustration on a two-part \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Love Lucy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when she announces her labor, saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think this is it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Same Time, Next Year\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when her waters breaks a month early, and they are both desperately trying to calm each other.<\/p>\n

Criticizing dramatization accuracy is fun, too. When Lynda Goodfriend in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Happy Day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s starts labor, she is eating a large banana split and has a contraction that nearly drops her to her knees. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A first contraction is never that hard, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I said smugly, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure she won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep all that ice cream down!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Farewell to Arms,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jennifer Jones insists on going to the hairdresser when her labor starts so she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll look beautiful at the hospital. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now that is dumb!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said (and wondered why I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thought of that). When John-Boy Walton helps Sissy Spacek deliver a baby on an episode of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Waltons\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (during a terrible storm, naturally), good old Sissy brings the baby home astride a donkey about eight hours later. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nobody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be riding a donkey right after having a baby!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said.<\/p>\n

The best payoff for watching these deliveries, though, is that I can relive my own. Now, granted, on a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Star Trek\u00e2\u20ac\u009d episode when Dr. McCoy scans a female alien\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s abdomen with a little box and entones, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The baby should be coming anytime now,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t identify very much with the obstetrical care! But when the little being did arrive, it was wonderful and charming. And the baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dramatic first cry in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yankee Doodle Dandy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d brought tears to my eyes, just as it did when my own sons were born.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in LLL of New Mexico\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Enchantment, 1985 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Better start boiling water and get some clean sheets\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So starts another Hollywood birth, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m such a fan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-leche-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}