Born to Birth
On this gloomy and wet March day, I would like to embark upon a topic of discussion that has long intruiged me. Pregnancy and childbirth. I have come to the conclusion that some women must just be "born to birth". And then of course, there are the rest of us.
This thought first occured to me when I had a mother come up to me and say, "Don't you just LOVE being pregnant?" Was this woman crazy? I looked into her eyes, and she seemed perfectly normal, yet she talked about pregnancy as though it was some sort of elevated state of euphoria. Talking to her, you would think that pregancy was like some magical experiance that lifted one onto the heights with the angles where fairy dust glittered on your cheeks as you floated from cloud to cloud. I was mistified.
Since then I have encountered more of these crazy women. This has caused me to realize that people are just plain different. For example, there are women who birth their babies in 4 hours with no drugs (not to name any names - Meghan), or even in the car. It is like their bodies were created for this moment of realeasing life into the world. It works, just like is supposed to. Then there are the rest of us, who labor for hours, in hopelessness taking all the drugs we can, then pushing for what seems like years, injuring ourselves by pushing out large-headed babies, causing permanate damage and spending weeks waddling around in the hope that one day we will be able to walk normally again - and maybe just maybe sit down for 30 minutes without pain. We go through weeks of pointless sobbing and hormonal rollercoasters, taking it all out on our husbands and hoping that one day they will forgive us. We wonder if we will ever get dressed again, or see our houses clean. We muddle through the postpartem period in a dark fog, hoping to see the light.
Then there are the moms who are "great" one week after baby. They have started their exercises, done the spring cleaning, finsished their birth photo collage, quilted their babies first blanket and are ready for life as usual. See - these are the women who are born to birth.
Now to get back to the pregnancy itself. Well, I will warn you I can be very long winded on this particular topic, so near to my heart (literally at the moment). So be prepared.
Preganant women have that special, "glow". In my case it is more like "glower". I am in pain and I like to share that pain, mostly with the man that I hold responsible for my condition. I figure if anyone, he has the most right to share in the pain, since I am carrying his offspring.
Feelings of sickness as well as inevetable impending largeness do not help one to maintain a proper diet and excersize routine, at least in my case. So I gain about 60 lbs per pregnacy. That is alot. The recommened amount is 20 -30lbs. As with most things I do like to consider myself above average, so this is no exception. The main problem with this is that the babies seldom weigh more that 10 lbs, so that leaves me about 50 lbs overweight and with a new baby to care for. This is not the ideal situation.
I contrast this with the women who do yoga and jog faithfully, stick to their organic, sugar free diet and go home from the hospital in their skinny jeans. These women - again - born to birth.
Then more great injustices for preganant women:
The time when you most wish for a glass of wine to help relax you , you can't have one.
The sense of smell is hightened greatly during pregnancy. Changes in the hormones cause increased flautulence during pregnancy. Is this fair?
You are increasinly tired when pregnant, and yet heartburn and baby, make sleep difficult.
In closing, I will say that I am not as much of an ungrateful whiner as I may sound. I have learned that love = sacrafice. Parenting has taught me that. But really it's not a surprise. "Greater love has no man than he lay down his life......" I am blessed because hopefully in some small ways I am learning to get beyond myself and life a life worthy of the calling I have recieved. There were never any promises that it would be easy. Anything worth doing seldom is.
This thought first occured to me when I had a mother come up to me and say, "Don't you just LOVE being pregnant?" Was this woman crazy? I looked into her eyes, and she seemed perfectly normal, yet she talked about pregnancy as though it was some sort of elevated state of euphoria. Talking to her, you would think that pregancy was like some magical experiance that lifted one onto the heights with the angles where fairy dust glittered on your cheeks as you floated from cloud to cloud. I was mistified.
Since then I have encountered more of these crazy women. This has caused me to realize that people are just plain different. For example, there are women who birth their babies in 4 hours with no drugs (not to name any names - Meghan), or even in the car. It is like their bodies were created for this moment of realeasing life into the world. It works, just like is supposed to. Then there are the rest of us, who labor for hours, in hopelessness taking all the drugs we can, then pushing for what seems like years, injuring ourselves by pushing out large-headed babies, causing permanate damage and spending weeks waddling around in the hope that one day we will be able to walk normally again - and maybe just maybe sit down for 30 minutes without pain. We go through weeks of pointless sobbing and hormonal rollercoasters, taking it all out on our husbands and hoping that one day they will forgive us. We wonder if we will ever get dressed again, or see our houses clean. We muddle through the postpartem period in a dark fog, hoping to see the light.
Then there are the moms who are "great" one week after baby. They have started their exercises, done the spring cleaning, finsished their birth photo collage, quilted their babies first blanket and are ready for life as usual. See - these are the women who are born to birth.
Now to get back to the pregnancy itself. Well, I will warn you I can be very long winded on this particular topic, so near to my heart (literally at the moment). So be prepared.
Preganant women have that special, "glow". In my case it is more like "glower". I am in pain and I like to share that pain, mostly with the man that I hold responsible for my condition. I figure if anyone, he has the most right to share in the pain, since I am carrying his offspring.
Feelings of sickness as well as inevetable impending largeness do not help one to maintain a proper diet and excersize routine, at least in my case. So I gain about 60 lbs per pregnacy. That is alot. The recommened amount is 20 -30lbs. As with most things I do like to consider myself above average, so this is no exception. The main problem with this is that the babies seldom weigh more that 10 lbs, so that leaves me about 50 lbs overweight and with a new baby to care for. This is not the ideal situation.
I contrast this with the women who do yoga and jog faithfully, stick to their organic, sugar free diet and go home from the hospital in their skinny jeans. These women - again - born to birth.
Then more great injustices for preganant women:
The time when you most wish for a glass of wine to help relax you , you can't have one.
The sense of smell is hightened greatly during pregnancy. Changes in the hormones cause increased flautulence during pregnancy. Is this fair?
You are increasinly tired when pregnant, and yet heartburn and baby, make sleep difficult.
In closing, I will say that I am not as much of an ungrateful whiner as I may sound. I have learned that love = sacrafice. Parenting has taught me that. But really it's not a surprise. "Greater love has no man than he lay down his life......" I am blessed because hopefully in some small ways I am learning to get beyond myself and life a life worthy of the calling I have recieved. There were never any promises that it would be easy. Anything worth doing seldom is.
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