This morning, I was composing a post in my mind. I was cringing to even think about it, much less write it. The post was filled with fear and grayness because the last three days I have been feeling sick again. And worse than sick, I've been feeling the same lack of motivation and apathy that I felt in the first trimester. This morning I had the nostalgic feeling of almost throwing up on my drive to work. The post also was going to include a tongue-in-cheek, slightly humorous, slightly depressing description of the fight I got into with my poor husband last night. In this fight you would have learned about my I-am-so-importnant moment revolving around MY baby shower and MY birth experience. In which my husband (who WAS annoying me) was doing his best to placate me, feed me dinner and not lose his temper at me. These are all the things you would have learned about if I had written this post.
But I was dreading even writing the post, and therefore I'm sure my few kind readers would have been dragged down into my blahness just by reading the post.
Luckily, you all were saved from that fate by a five-day-old newborn.
Tonight, after work, B. and I stopped by our friends' house to see their new little daughter. This is the couple who just gave birth at the same Birth Center as us. In fact, they are the reason we switched to the birthing center in the first place. It's funny, because we don't know them that well, but I'm thinking timing may bring us very close together.
I am so grateful we stopped by their house today. I was so pitiful and pathetic. But, seeing the three of them together was amazing. Both of the new parents were in a the new-baby-endorphin-high and were just so amazed by everything their daughter did. These two people who were not parents a week ago were now handling it all with such confidence and awe. B. held the baby for about 30 minutes and she looked so absolutely tiny and content in his arms and I had a hard time focusing on the conversation occurring around me because I was distracted by the image of my big, strong husband comforting this tiny baby.
Oh, and you might wonder if I held the baby? Hmm. Well, I'm sad to admit I'm a bit terrified of holding babies. I'm great with kids. But babies? Not so good. There is no maternal magic that clicked in when I got pregnant. I just don't have this natural ability to know how to hold a baby and comfort her the way B. does. I did try. Really I did. But I think after 30 minutes with B. and not enough time with mama's breast, she just wasn't having it.
Baby holding aside, we also got to hear about their experience with the midwives. Being self-focused, this was high on my list of priorities. Their birth is my dream birth. No drama, no panic, no fear. Just the two of them, holding each other, slowly going through the experience. The midwives checked her every 20-30 minutes to make sure the baby was okay, but other than that, they stayed in the background until needed. She said they did a good job of giving her enough information to keep her calm and then when it was time to get serious, they settled her and told her it was time to push. What impressed me most about the story was there was no mention of pain. They used words like "intense," "primal," "disconnected from reality" and "strong." But no one said "pain."
And so, I left their house feeling inspired, energetic and amazed. That's what I want. I want a intense but calm birth experience resulting in an amazing little baby that I can share with my husband so we can be amazed by the way he wrinkles his nose at us. Does it matter that the nausea may be coming back? Does it matter that there is a chance the next three months could be a flashback to the first three? Not really. Not in the big picture of things.
Do me a favor, ok? Remind me of that when I start bitching again.
I'm the same way as you with kids vs babies. And I realized the other day that it's because A) babies are tiny humans and B) they're humans I usually don't know at all, making them strangers. It's hard to hit it off right away with any stranger, especially if she can't tell you what she likes, etc. The relationship we'll have with our own babies will be totally different from the feeling of having a little stranger wriggling around!
ReplyDeleteThis post made me tear up a little. It's the best of everything. It's the cliff notes version of the bad stuff. Which, ya know. When there is bad stuff, we want to hear about it so we can do our thing and offer support. But then we get to see that the REASON it's the cliff notes version is that all of those things seemed to slide away when you got to be around an actual babe - see your husband father, listen to a story of what sounds like a perfect birth, feel the happy buzz coming from those new parents. I hope this was a brief foray into fear and grayness and that it will leave you the heck alone from here on out. But, if not, bitch away, sisterfriend.
ReplyDeleteHow inspiring. I'm assuming that you've read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth? If you haven't, I think that you would feel really empowered by the birth stories in that book.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own experience, birth was painful...there's no hiding that truth. But it was helpful to talk about it in terms of intensity.
If you really like birth stories, you can read about my natural (hospital) waterbirth here:
http://teachmetobraid.blogspot.com/2012/11/freight-train.html
I loved your birth story! Everyone should go read it. GO READ IT people!
DeleteYes, I did read Ina May's book and watched her documentary, I think it is called A Birth Story? Or something like that. I'm jealous you got to see her speak in person. She is a really charismatic person who has done a lot for the field she is in.
I'm okay with pain. I know there will be pain. I just hope it is not the overwhelming feeling such that that is all I can remember about the experience. We'll see.
Beautiful :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear your sickness and blah-ness has returned, but what an awesome experience! I'm glad you were able to have that and feel better!
ReplyDelete