Eight and a half months of pregnancy, feeling puffy, exhausted, grumpy as hell, with a belly that not only turns your feet into complete strangers, but also decides to rumba every time you want to sleep. The rest of your body is well into the drama, shooting you up with mega-hormonal gushes to set your head spinning, your temperature rising, your moods swinging like a fruit bat in a cyclone and your cervix thinning.
Thinning right along with cervical tissue … patience. Can’t wait to get your body back and meet the little human you’ve been gestating? Well … that’s coming up on the dance card after just a few more sambas, a cha-cha and the bunny hop.
Excited? You bet! Primed to have your personal premises vacated? Sure nuff! Looking forward to a reintroduction to your waist? Deffo! Jazzed about mastering the art of Pamper-ing? Yeah, even that.
It’s all going to happen. There’s just one little thing you have to do first.
There’s more than one reason making a person from scratch takes almost a year. Sure, there’s the baking process that brings the little bun from Open Sesame! Seed to full sweeter than CinnaBun form, but that’s just the biology bit. The really vital thing about the duration of gestation is getting you to the point that you’re so sick and tired of being preggers that the idea of evicting your womb renter sounds really, really good no matter the mess you have to go through to get the bugger out.
Intimidating? Well, yeah, but here are a couple of things to keep in mind over the next days:
1) You’re not the first to go through this. Heck! If your mother could do it, you can certainly pull it off, and with style!
2) Birth is a natural process, neither an illness nor a contrived torture, but finite in its duration and what you were built for.
3) You are the star of the show, so can be as demanding, bitchy and whiny as you want and no one will do anything but applaud at the end of the performance. Plus, you go home with a prize more valuable than any statuette could ever hope to be.
4) It’s a bit too late to change your mind.
Doctors can explain the reasons for the pain in the birthing process … and, yes, it does hurt … and it helps to know why it seems someone is cranking the rack way beyond all limits of even the most sadistic persecutor, so make them tell you exactly what’s going on, and in detail. Focusing on what’s happening where will help, and understanding your body’s responses can bring you into the picture rather than leave you screaming from the sidelines.
This is, after all, an active process. You are not a victim birthing is happening to, but the whole damned team for the only game in town.
Not that it’s play. Oh, no! This is WORK. That’s why they call it LABOR. And it’s a job that you do, then finish. Preparation is important, and you’ve had months for that (See above), so the early pangs of labor won’t come as a surprise.
“It’s time …”, may be your first thought, but don’t panic — you’re ready. Your body is ready. Your baby is ready. And whether you know it or not, you ARE ready.
You’re young, fit and strong. Your muscles know what to do without you having to even think about guiding the process. All you have to do is let it happen and do the work.
It’s a marathon and quitting is not an option, so pull on your Big Girl Panties … crotchless is good in this circumstance … and get ready to sweat. You’ll be running hills and valleys, so let yourself coast when you can, then pull your guts out when the going is steep, the exhaustion sets in and your body starts screaming at you to pull over and throw in the towel. That AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN! You WILL win. You WILL conquer. And all those wimps inside snidely suggesting you’re a loser will eat your dust.
If someone offers some comfort and ease along the way, take it. Having fans shout encouragement is good, too. But you’re in this alone and no one can carry you across the finish line. That you do alone, and for that you get the glory. For that, for the rest of your life, you earn the best title ever bestowed on any woman anywhere: Mom.
I’ve given birth, and it was … hands down … the most exciting experience of my life, and the most fun I’ve ever had. I envy you your upcoming adventure!
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
It is a miracle and a blessing to be able to have and to hold them. “I consider myself…echo… the luckiest woman…echo… on the face of the earth…echo.” There’s one thing I thought I was really pondering on doing when I was younger and able, was to go through child birth six more times just to have nine wonderful children all together; to make a team of baseball players. Instead it turns out that all three of my children turned out to be pretty damn good baseball players if I don’t say so myself. This was another example of “the proof is in the pudding.” Or, Ask and you will receive. Nock and the door shall open for those who believe. I never had so much fun in my life especially when it was time to change yucky diapers and to breast feed at three in the morning.
I enjoyed the process, but couldn’t afford a team. I would have made a good surrogate, I suppose.
Sandra, Thank you for your vote of confidence and exuberant support of LIFE! Being pregnant was a state of grace for me. With my first, at 17, I discovered that I understood so much without being taught. When labor started, I was able to receive instructions and play my part by listening to the sound of my breathing and following a familiar rhythm that overtook me. I watched it rain in the room. A soft, warm, tapping on my skin and then a breeze would drive it harder into me until I needed it to stop and return to the gentle shower. Previously terrified, I was thinking, upon that first twisting pain, “Oh. I’ve done this before. Oh… This is what it is. Of course. I can do this.” And the big mystery of labor seemed like something I had done a million times before . Yes, our bodies are well suited to it and most of us are able. I am wondering if you also felt these vague flashes and deja’vu. My era was pre-lamaze, but no drugs. I stayed at home in a hot shower for the earliest parts and then, this strange combination of knowing hallucinations… muscle memory? genetic memory? It was 36 hrs. but I had no concept of that. Perhaps each one of us brings our own story to the event. We are the old wise women now! Thanks for re-enforcing the positive. Too many of the young women today don’t want to know a thing. It’s a “Wake me when it’s over” kind of attitude. I sure hope they don’t have that attitude towards making the baby in the first place!…Sun
Similar circumstances for my first … our ages at the time, no drugs, no “how to” lessons beforehand … and, yes, it was familiar. To intentionally miss the experience seems to me akin to rendering oneself unconscious for a trip down the Amazon — yes, the mosquitoes won’t annoy and don’t have to worry about getting wet, but you’ll sure miss one hell of a ride!
Giving up your body for nine or ten months so that another human being can have a chance to enter into this world is not an easy thing to do I have to admit. I do have my hard realities, painful testimonies. I can still remember when the nurse asked me how I was doing and if it was worth it. I had to think about her question for more than maybe she had liked. Since it was my first child and that I had a very hard time giving birth for 32 hours after I was told I had hyper-toxaemia and then was medically evacuated by a military helicopter from one base to another only to find myself in ICU with a respiratory tube down my throat and wasn’t able to see my daughter or to really know if she was alive at all. There are people that ask me, if I had such a bad time to where you almost lost your life giving birth why on earth would you want to choose to get pregnant again? My first response was that it wasn’t my fault first of all that all of what happened to me because I wasn’t irresponsible by not taking care of myself. At that time I didn’t know that my biological mother went through pretty much the same thing when she was trying to give birth to my older sister. If I had known then what I do know now I would have told the doctors about my biological medical history and it’s not much, maybe they would have been more meticulous in their medical evaluations during my prenatal care. Yes I would tell them it was worth it because my daughter is alive and I was blessed to see her grow up as a beautiful person inside and out. And it was all worth the inconvenience of having to endure birthing pains from my two other wonderful children as well. I wouldn’t change a thing if I could I would just change some laws.
Thanks for this Sands… sorry I only got to read it now. Internet issues as usual. TIS!
This is beautiful and I love it… thanks for writing it for me (those birth videos was like a gore flick). Opened guts, tearing flesh and all sorts of body fluids… yup, here comes the goosebumps!
I wish I could have this enlarged and pasted on the ceiling at the delivery room so that when I’m on my back doing a half-spread eagle with strangers fiddling in my down under (without buying me dinner first – one of the parts I hate the most, and I’m not even that prudish), I can at least picture you barking instructions at me and glaring at me with those piecing blues of yours (they are blue right? I always seem to see you only at night)!
Well 9 months this week and things are still dodgy with me and the BD (you know my story) so at the moment, don’t even know if I should have him around (he says I’m selfish if I don’t call him when I’m in labor coz it’s “his kid too”) and I’m torn between doing what’s fair for everyone and hitting him with a bed pan and saying he’s been so unsupportive these past 9 months, why the hell would he deserve to be there for the birth.
Anyway, like you said, I am the star of this unglamorous show and I can be as much of a diva as I want 🙂 Thanks again for this vote of support Sands, you’re the best! xxx
My supreme pleasure, Di. And, hey!, I’ll buy you dinner and there’s no way I want to be looking where the sun don’t shine unless you need me there helping Kai escape. (By the way, they’ll be looking at him, not you, so just keep that in mind. And you do NOT need to smile!) I don’t bark, but you can call me for gentle support any time you like. As for who’s there … it is TOTALLY your call.
PS: My eyes are greenish …