Birth Day
The Birth Day is one of the most significant communal rituals in the Republic of Gilead, a ceremony that simultaneously celebrates and enforces the regime's reproductive imperatives. For the Handmaids, it is a rare day of collective purpose, emotional release, and temporary reprieve from isolation, but it also lays bare the brutal hierarchy that governs their bodies and futures.
The Call and the Journey
The event begins with a siren, a thin sound that swells into a trumpet-like proclamation, announcing the arrival of the red Birthmobile. Offred, hearing the siren from her room, leaves her half-eaten second egg and hurries to the closet for her cloak. Cora, usually reserved, helps her on with the cloak and is actually smiling. The front door, normally forbidden to Handmaids after their first day, is opened for her, and a Guardian salutes as she passes. The Birthmobile is parked in the driveway, its back door open; inside, the carpet and curtains are red, and three women are already seated on benches. The Guardian locks the doors, and the van lurches forward, its siren screaming "Make way, make way!" The woman next to Offred grabs her hand, squeezes it, and turns to reveal tears running down her cheeks—not of envy or disappointment, but of laughter. She throws her arms around Offred, hugging her, and wipes her sleeve across her face. On this day, Offred reflects, they can do anything they want, though she immediately revises: within limits.
The Gathering and the Birthing Room
The van stops at a large house, and the Handmaids file toward the front door in the drizzle, past Guardians saluting. A blue Birthmobile arrives for the Wives, who get real seats and face front, not curtained off like the Handmaids. Inside, the central staircase is wide, with curved banisters. From above comes the chanting of women already assembled. Offred sees a buffet laid out in the dining room—ham, cheese, oranges, fresh-baked breads and cakes—for the Wives, who will wait for the results before eating. In the sitting room, the Wife of Warren lies on the floor in a white cotton nightgown, her graying hair spreading like mildew over the rug, while other Wives massage her tiny belly as if she herself is about to give birth. The Commander is nowhere in sight, likely figuring out when his promotion will be announced if all goes well.
Janine, now Ofwarren, sits on the master bedroom's king-size bed, propped with pillows. She wears a white cotton shift hiked up over her thighs; her long broom-colored hair is pulled back and tied behind her head. Her eyes are squeezed closed. Two women grip her hands, a third pours baby oil onto her stomach and rubs downward. Aunt Elizabeth, in her khaki dress with military breast pockets, stands at her feet, and beside her is the Birthing Stool with its double seat. The rest of the women sit cross-legged on the rug—twenty-five or thirty of them, everyone in the district. Offred recognizes Ofglen, her shopping partner, sitting two away. The soft chanting envelops them like a membrane.
The Labor and the Delivery
The room grows hot and noisy. A bloodstained sheet lies bundled in a corner from when Janine's waters broke. The air smells of sweat, iron, and a more animal scent—the smell of dens, of inhabited caves. The women chant in unison: "Breathe, breathe. Hold, hold. Expel, expel, expel." Janine becomes restless, wanting to walk; the women support her on either side as she paces. A contraction doubles her over, and one woman kneels to rub her back. A Martha arrives with a tray of grape juice and paper cups; Ofglen pours, and the cups pass down the line. Offred receives a cup, and the woman next to her whispers, asking if she is looking for anyone. Offred whispers back, "Moira. Dark hair, freckles." The woman says she will watch for her.
Janine screams, a weak sound between a scream and a groan. "She's going into transition," says Aunt Elizabeth. The women chant "Pant! pant! pant!" Janine says she wants to go outside, to go for a walk, to go to the can. She is lowered onto a portable toilet, and another smell joins the others in the room. Crouching, she looks like a doll that has been pillaged and discarded. Someone has spiked the grape juice with a bottle pinched from downstairs; the Aunts turn a blind eye. "Dim the lights," says Aunt Elizabeth. The room fades to twilight, and the women's voices dwindle to a chorus of creaks and husky whispers. Two women lead Janine to the Birthing Stool, where she sits on the lower seat. The Commander's Wife hurries in, in her ridiculous white cotton nightgown, her spindly legs sticking out. She scrambles onto the seat behind and above Janine, her skinny legs coming down on either side like the arms of an eccentric chair. She wears white cotton socks and blue bedroom slippers made of fuzzy material.
Janine grunts with effort. "Push, push, push," the women whisper. Aunt Elizabeth kneels with an outspread towel to catch the baby. The head appears, purple and smeared with yoghurt; another push and it slithers out, slick with fluid and blood. Aunt Elizabeth inspects it: a girl. Hands, feet, eyes—everything is in place. She looks up and smiles. The women smile too, tears running down their cheeks. Offred remembers Luke with her in the hospital, holding her hand, saying "Oh Jesus" in wonder.
The Aftermath and the Naming
Aunt Elizabeth washes the baby gently. The women crowd around Janine, squeezing her, patting her. She is crying too. The two Wives help the Commander's Wife down from the Birthing Stool and over to the bed, where they lay her down and tuck her in. The baby, washed and quiet, is placed ceremoniously in her arms. The Wives from downstairs crowd in, pushing among the Handmaids, talking too loud, still carrying their plates, coffee cups, and wine glasses. They cluster around the bed, cooing and congratulating. Envy radiates from them, faint wisps of acid mingled with their perfume. The Commander's Wife looks down at the baby as if it is a bouquet of flowers—something she has won, a tribute. The Wives do the naming. "Angela," says the Commander's Wife. "Angela, Angela," the Wives repeat, twittering.
The Handmaids stand between Janine and the bed so she won't have to see this. Someone gives her a drink of grape juice, and Offred hopes there is wine in it. Janine is still having pains for the afterbirth, crying helplessly, burnt-out miserable tears. Nevertheless, the Handmaids are jubilant; it is a victory for all of them. Janine will be allowed to nurse the baby for a few months, then she will be transferred to see if she can do it again with someone else who needs a turn. She will never be sent to the Colonies or declared an Unwoman—that is her reward. The Birthmobile waits outside to deliver the Handmaids back to their own households. The doctors, still in their van, appear at the window, their faces white blobs like sick children confined to the house. One opens the door and asks anxiously, "Was it all right?" Offred says yes. By now she is wrung out, exhausted. Her breasts are painful, leaking a little—fake milk that happens this way with some of them. They sit on their benches, facing one another, without emotion now, almost without feeling, like bundles of red cloth. Each holds in her lap a phantom, a ghost baby. What confronts them, now the excitement is over, is their own failure. Offred thinks of her mother: "You wanted a women's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn't what you meant, but it exists."
