On April 4th, I learned a lot about opossums.

Waiting to go into labor is a strange event. Every out of the ordinary bodily function sends you Googling “Is __________ a sign of labor?” and every text message you receive asks if there is any change. Suddenly, topics that would never have been discussed within earshot of your father are fair game: “How does your uterus feel?” “Any more bloody show?”

I experienced most every labor symptom possible starting on April Fool’s Day because what kind of a kid would I be having if Cora didn’t play a trick on me before she even took her first breath? So at 7 in the morning April 4^th, I just figured it was more false labor.

Of course those contractions coming every 7 minutes don’t mean anything.

Then around ten AM, one of our dogs, Holly, started making the most unusual bark. Holly has pretty distinct sounds depending on what she is trying to tell us: high-pitched and whiny when scared, deep and guttural for  when she thinks danger is near, and obnoxious for when she’s too dumb to know what she’s barking at anymore. This bark, though, was something else. When I went outside to figure out 

what the hell she was doing, I found this:

Dammit, Holly. I’m in the middle of a contraction and you’re trying to snack on a baby opossum. This is why you’re only “Jerry’s dog” and not “our dog.”

I called Jerry who told me not to touch it (like I was going to!) to leave it until he gets home (8 hours later!).  

“I’ll just get a shoebox and put it in there like we used to do when my cats caught birds back in Bakersfield. Then, I’ll put it on the side of the house out front where it will be safe and Jerry can do whatever it is you do with slobbered on opossums when he gets home from work. I’m a genius.”

After another round of contractions, I decided the poop-scoop was probably my best bet to get the mangled marsupial into the box. Once I finally got it secured on the side of the house, I went back into the backyard to let out the shepherd and Sammy, our schnauzer, both of whom I’d locked in the garage during the fiasco (Lucy, the lonely lab, hangs out in the dog run by herself because she and Holly don’t get along).

Damn, I was proud of myself. I know putting a small but gross opossum in a shoebox for safekeeping until your husband gets home from work is nothing to brag about but dead animals and could-have-a-disease animals are not something I mess with. Rescuing and socializing feral kittens? I’m a pro. Catching tiny bouncing mockingbirds so they also don’t become dog food is pushing it but I will in a pinch. Snarling, spitting, opossums are solely Jerry’s responsibility. Snarling, spitting opossums while also contracting now every 6 minutes now should definitely be Jerry’s problem.

My slightly inflated ego only lasted about 3 minutes. When I let the two confined dogs out of the garage, Sammy made a bee-line for the corner of the yard. That’s when I saw it.

“It” was a much bigger version of the baby I had just wrangled into the shoebox. A very large, and very stiff version.

“Son of a bitch”, I groaned, half because another contraction began and half because I realized that big, rigid opossum was accompanied by five other babies that were roaming around my backyard, all going 

various directions. My two dogs were in heaven. 

I shuffled the dogs back into the garage and inspected the mama opossum.

Dead or playing dead? No idea. Looked bona-fide dead to me. I looked around and the five little guys and called Jerry, crying.

“Come home now, please!”

“What’s up? Are you in labor?”

“No (uh, yes!), but that opossum I found has a bunch of friends and I think the mom is dead! The babies are just crawling around it and it is so sad! I need you to come home and get rid of her.”

“Maybe she’s playing dead. Leave her alone and I bet she gets up and walks away later. I’ll come home in a few hours before my meeting tonight.”

After I composed myself, I put Lucy in the house because that opossum would never get up and wander off with Lucy barking at her.

So, I went inside and decided to move the couches around and put slip covers on them. Excellent idea, woman in denial over being in labor.

Several hours later I went back outside to inspect the opossum. The flies buzzing around her led me to believe she was in fact, very dead.

Some Googling taught me the following:

Opossums are the American marsupial hanging out in my backyard. Possums are the Austrialian version and theirs are much cuter. See?

(Photo courtesy photolaps) 

An opossum can have up to 22 babies but only 13 will survive because that’s how many nipples she has.

They are usually not rabid because their low body temperature protects them.

If you come across a dead one, you should check the opossum’s pouch because often times, her babies can survive in her pouch for several days.

There was no way in hell I was going to rummage around in that possum’s pouch for the other 7 babies. I don’t care how low of a body temperature they have, I’m not sticking my fingers in there.

My only hope was Animal Control because it was after hours by this point. I figured they’d tell me no since prior experiences with them taught me they will not remove a dead animal from private property. Thankfully, DJ the dispatcher was super cool and asked me to round up the remaining babies and they’d send someone out to collect them.

So, eventually Animal Control arrived and took the live babies out of my eager dogs’ reach to the rehab (yes, rehab) clinic at Project Wildlife and three hours later when Jerry got home, my contractions were so bad that I actually tried to get up and run it off. It was then that I decided it was time to go to the hospital. At ten PM that night, we headed to the hospital where I was promptly admitted for delivery…

(April 5^th to follow)