Yamazaki-san's in her thirty-eighth week of pregnancy, but due to a heart condition, she'll require an epidural--a procedure for which hospitals in Japan are neither equipped nor staffed. Unfortunately, just days before she's due to have her baby, she happens to run into a friend who shares some rather insensitive remarks about women who receive pain relief during childbirth. Wracked with insecurity, Yamazaki makes a shocking request on the operating room table: she wants to give birth without an epidural! This volume also features Side A of the story “Long-Term Hospitalization.”
