Pregnant Musings

With my due date only 2 1/2 weeks away I felt compelled to get a few things off my chest so that I may go into labor and experience the birth of our child with a clear head and open heart.  I want to make sure that I don’t have any unresolved issues or hang ups that could impede or slow down the natural birth process.  I also want our baby to be born into a calm, positive, peaceful environment.  

So, on that note, I just want to share a few questions I have been routinely asked throughout the last handful of months and why they have been difficult for me to answer honestly.  In short, this is my attempt to finally answer them honestly.  This is mostly for myself; a kind of therapeutic release, but I also hope that in sharing my experience that it may shine a light on something for someone else out there.

First question (asked more recently as I enter the last part of pregnancy): “Aren’t you ready for it to be over?”

How I usually answer: Oh, I still feel pretty good.  The baby will come when he/she is ready.

What I really want to say: As excited as I am to meet our baby, I’m really going to miss being pregnant.  I will never get to be this close to my child again, especially in such a profound and intimate way.  Each pregnancy, for each woman is experienced in such a unique way; it’s heartbreaking that this once-in-a-lifetime experience will be over soon.   Of course the reward will be mind-blowingly awesome, but after being pregnant for so long, one’s identity becomes increasing wrapped up in being “the pregnant one”.  Everyone is kinder and more generous with you, and unfortunately, in our society, that doesn’t really carry over to a woman once she is a mother.  Pregnant women are met with smiles and warmth, while mothers are often met with eye rolls and judgement.  Instead of becoming anxious and impatient, I’m really just trying to revel in this beautiful, blissful experience (swollen ankles, sore back and all)!  I try to remind myself every day that, yes, the baby will come when he/she and my body are ready, and in the mean time, I should soak up every second of this divine closeness with this brand new soul.

        Photo by K. Bree Walker Photography

Second question (especially if the person asking finds out that I’m giving birth at home): “Aren’t you scared/nervous/worried about the pain/(or any other negative perceptions about birth)?”

How I usually answer:  No, not really.  I’m actually pretty excited.

What I really want to say:  If you had any idea what my previous birth experience was like, and the fact that I made it through that, you would know that nothing else could scare me/make me nervous/or worry me.  You see, nosy stranger, a little under a year ago I had to give birth to my stillborn daughter.  After a man who was tweeked out on meth pulled out in front of me on the highway, causing a serious car accident, I had to find out in the hospital later that night that, at 22 weeks pregnant, I had lost our baby.  Over the next twelve hours, I had to have a pill digitally inserted into my cervix every few hours to induce labor, and then lay flat on my back for another hour while it dissolved.  When that didn’t work I was given Pitocin, which is a synthetic form of Oxytocin, also to induce labor.  Pitocin increases the severity and strength of your contractions beyond what you can imagine (especially when they crank the dosage up to an ungodly level).  When the pain from the Pitcocin combined with the pain from the injuries I sustained from the accident became too much, I was convinced to get an epidural, which literally, temporarily paralyzed me from the waist down.  The paralysis from the epidural was worse than the contractions from the Pitocin, but worse than all of it, was the emotional pain of knowing that all of this was happening so I could give birth, for the first time, to a child who would not be coming home with me.  Soon after receiving the epidural, the baby was born, and Ike and I found out we had a daughter, who we named Helen.

This experience turned out to be the exact opposite of the quiet, serene home birth we had been planning for Helen.  So, now as we inch closer to the quiet, serene home birth we are planning for our second child, I can assure you, that if I can get through the above scenario, and come out of it in one piece, I can damn well get through anything, especially something as beautiful and awe-inspiring as a natural birth.

Photo courtesy of The Manhattan Mercury

Third question, and by far the hardest to answer: “Is this your first?”

How I usually answer: Yes.

What I really want to say:  Actually, no.  If I’m going to be honest with you, this is my third pregnancy, but no, I don’t have any other children at home to show for it.  You see, about two years ago I had a miscarriage—on my honeymoon—when I was four weeks along.  Oh, and last May, I gave birth to my stillborn daughter.

Every time I answer yes, I feel a dagger going through my heart because I feel like I’m betraying Helen.  It makes me sick to answer this way, but I can’t, emotionally, continue to explain Helen to strangers.  They want a nice, short answer, not to be made aware that these things are often more complicated than they seem.

I know that this may all come off as sounding bitter, and really I’m not.  I make my own choices, and I have chosen to answer these questions this way, mostly because it’s exhausting to answer honestly.  And also because I don’t feel like being vulnerable with every person who asks these questions; questions that to them seem harmless enough, but to me, open up a wound that will never fully heal.

There will always be questions about my children or our family, and I will have to choose, for the rest of my life, how or where our story of Helen fits into that.  But, right now, I’m choosing to let my guard down and be honest with you, my friends, and honest with myself: I love being pregnant and am sad to see it come to an end, but excited about meeting our baby—After having experienced the worst, nothing about birth scares me.  I trust nature, my baby and my body.—No, this is not my first baby.  I had a daughter.  Her name was Helen and I miss her every day.