she was again lying on the delivery table , bathed in sweat , her hair in strings , her feet splayed out in the stirrups ( and a little high from the gas they kept giving her whiffs of ; at one point she had muttered that she felt like an advertisement for gang rape , and the nurse , an old bird who had assisted at the births of enough children to populate a high school , found that extremely funny ) the doctor between her legs , the nurse off to one side , arranging instruments and humming .