I recently entered the third trimester of pregnancy and inevitably my mind has been wandering to the entrance of our seventh baby into this world. In part I am sure this has to do with the way a pregnant woman feels at this time . . . miserable, pretty much. But the reality of the baby coming is also becoming clearer. It is no longer a future event, but rather something for which I need to clear out my closet. Remember how I celebrated last year that the nursery became our walk in closet?
I remember when I was pregnant with my first child and my due date was drawing near, I began to feel a bit of anxiety about actually getting the child out. It seems odd now that the thought didn’t really occur to me until the end. Up until that point my thoughts were preoccupied in delighting over her every wiggle (which we often tried to catch on film) and journaling every single aspect of my pregnancy. As I approached my last trimester, we started Lamaze (do they even offer these classes anymore?) and the hard reality of the task quickly approaching was consuming my thoughts.
Part of what spurred on the fret was that Ken and I took a short trip to Boston for a few days and visited the science museum. Inside was an exhibit about the miracle of life with two videos at the end showing the two possible ways for the baby to exit the mother’s body. After watching both videos, a C-section was looking like a piece of cake. Having layer after layer of your skin and muscle skin cut apart? No problem. The other option looked treacherous.
My mom has always been able to reassure me and since she birthed nine children, I assumed she would console my anxious thoughts and put to rest the awful lies I was hearing about tearing and screaming and throwing up. I said, “Mom, childbirth can’t be too bad because you did it nine times, right?”
She responded, “It’s the worst pain you will ever experience and you will feel like you are going to die.”
Though I was not consoled, it is the most accurate explanation of child birth I have ever heard. When I went into labor a few weeks later with my birth plan and my mixed tapes of my most favorite music to sooth me, there was a part of me that was at least slightly prepared for what lie ahead.
The classes told me there would be three stages of labor and that the first two stages often lasted up to eight hours each. My whole ordeal was less than five hours from first contraction to holding screaming child and releasing my husband’s neck from a head lock.
There was, of course, not time for any drugs (or my mixed tapes), though I was sure at the time there must be time for something. All I remember is the nurse telling me I needed to calm down and let go of Ken’s head, because he was going to need it. I also remember feeling that these people were way too calm and unsympathetic to the loin wrenching pain that I was experiencing.
The second part of the conversation that I had with my mom went something like this, “It is the absolute worst but as soon as you hold that baby, you forget all about the pain and it is worth every second of it.”
Having done it a few times myself now, I have to say, that is also accurate. The pain is gone (or at least bearable) and this child is yours forever.
The hospital stay is my two day retreat. I need no visitors, only time with my newbie, possibly Ken, and the snack cart. The kids will have me back in two days. I have two days to soak in the miraculous existence of this little stranger that I already love more than life itself and actually nurse the child uninterrupted. Something that I am quite certain won’t be done once I return home.
Some may wonder why I would knowingly choose this sort of pain upon my body time after time. “Maybe labor doesn’t hurt her?” some might wonder. Did you know there are actual people out there in the world who claim to have painless labor and symptom-less pregnancies? A pox upon all of them, I say.
That is not true for me. I have not, I’m sure, experienced the worst symptoms out there, but I’ve had my share of the rest. I will spare you the details just in case you haven’t birthed a child and are considering it in any part of your future. But in my experience, it is not a walk in the park to grow, deliver and raise a child.
My sister has to be one of the most miserable pregnant people I have ever met. So much so that it is actually quite funny. Anyway, one day she exclaimed, “I know you just LOVE being pregnant and all but I hate everything about it.” I had to laugh that she actually thought I LOVED being pregnant.
I admit that there are elements to being pregnant that I am quite fond of: when your belly is so big that your button pops out and you have no flab whatsoever because the skin is so tight, feeling the beginning movements of the baby (not the kind where the baby is actually playing soccer with your organs, just a flutter of something strange living inside you), nesting (any motivation to deep clean the house and every article of clothing that the baby might come into contact with might be reason enough to procreate), the “vacation” in the hospital. . . I think that’s it.
The only real reason I LOVE being pregnant is because it comes with a baby; a gift of life to enjoy and unwrap for the rest of life. It starts as a sweet smelling (most of the time) bundle that mostly sleeps and morphs into this child of wonder that literally is discovering the world. To get to journey alongside of that and witness a child become who they are meant to be, to me is worth it. Even if it comes with legs that look like road maps, saggy skin, a fuzzy brain, cracked nipples, “my area” being violated, the questions about why we have so many kids and so on.
The downsides to pregnancy are there. I will never excuse them away. I will never tell you it’s easy or painless or the best thing for everyone to do. I will tell you that it hurts, badly, and you may feel like you are going to die. But for me, the upside is life. And there is just no comparison.
I am sure come March, at the first real contraction, I will be second guessing this whole plan altogether. Darn that Eve getting cursed in the garden!