The Argonauts

Nelson describes the changes in the cervix that take place as a woman enters labor. Her own contractions began in the afternoon and didn’t progress much through the night and morning, despite attempts to speed the process up with walks, castor oil, and baths. On the ride to the hospital, her pain began to worsen: “[T]he pain turns into a luge. […] I begin to count, noticing each one takes about twenty seconds. I think, any kind of pain must be bearable for twenty seconds, for nineteen, for thirteen, for six” (127).

By the time she and Dodge reached the hospital, Nelson was five centimeters dilated, but then stalled again at seven and took medication to induce stronger contractions. Finally, after the doctors broke Nelson’s water and encouraged the baby into a better position, she was ready to give birth: “Then they say I can push. I push. I feel him come out, all of him, all at once […] And then, suddenly, Iggy. Here he comes onto me, rising. He is perfect, he is right” (133). A few hours later, a lactation consultant visited Nelson and Dodge. The couple said they wanted “Iggy” to be short for “Igasho”—a Native-American name—and the consultant, who was a member of the Pima tribe, gave them her blessing.

Nelson intersperses this account of Iggy’s birth with Dodge’s account of his mother’s death. After her cancer diagnosis, she lived for a while with Nelson and Dodge before going home to Michigan to die. When it became clear that death was imminent, Dodge went to see her in hospice and reassured her of his love and gratitude. Dodge then watched his mother take her final breath: “and then her eyes relaxed and her shoulders relaxed of a piece. and i knew she had found her way. dared. summoned up her smarts and courage and whacked a way through” (132). He remained with his mother’s body for several hours afterwards—an experience he describes as beautiful and profound.

Nelson explains that giving birth also involves a brush with death, because both are physical experiences that “demand surrender” (134). She then returns to Dodge’s story, detailing the many names he has held over the course of his life: “Wendy Malone” when he was born, “Rebecca Priscilla Bard” after being adopted, “Harriet Dodge” (137) after dropping out of college. She also explores the ways in which Dodge’s gender reads socially—for instance, being forced to choose between “Mr.” and “Ms.” in a New York Times profile. Dodge attributes some of the fluidity of his identity to being adopted, but he was interested enough in his birth mother to seek her out in his thirties; she turned out to be a “newly sober leather dyke” (138) who identified Dodge’s father as “Jerry” based on his resemblance to her other son. That son—Dodge’s brother—was raised by Jerry, ending up addicted to drugs and in and out of jail.

Finally, Nelson reflects on the challenges and rewards of motherhood: respecting her child’s boundaries in her writing, imparting healthy attitudes about her own limitations, and relinquishing him as an adult. Referencing the idea that evolution is “a teleology without a point […] a project that issues in nothing,” she questions whether “there really [is] such a thing as nothing, as nothingness” (143). She continues, explaining that all she knows for sure is that “we’re still here, who knows for how long, ablaze with our care, its ongoing song” (143).