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."