Labor, Take Two

“There are three things that are givens about labor: it’s hard work, it hurts a lot, and you can do it. That’s the bottom line. All the rest you learn about is icing on the cake.” –Suzanne Stalls, midwife

"[I]t does no good to imagine the evils that await us! And for the unimagined ones the Lord is sufficient. So let us be at peace." –In The Arena, autobiography of Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China in early-mid 1900s

I think the point of the last month of pregnancy is to make you so tired of being pregnant that you’re actually willing to consider the thought of going through labor. I reached that point about a week ago.

But contemplating labor is a scary thing. At some point you go from thinking how charming it is that the wee thing is growing into the size of a pea or mango, to realizing that whatever keeps getting bigger in there is going to have to make it out of your body at some point. Which is really quite barbaric if you think about it.

You would think it’s less scary having been through it once, but if anything it’s worse. There was more mystery the first time, certainly more unknowns, but thus more reliance on taking it moment by moment in a way of deep faith. I thought about what it meant to bear this sign of the fall; to identify with Christ in bringing new life through suffering. I thought about what it added to my view of what my body could do, to how precious her existence meant because it had really cost me something. I gathered practical ideas on how to ease the pain, did most of the labor at home with D before arriving at the hospital to push, and stayed in a relatively good mental state the whole time.

For some reason, this time around, all I can think about is the reality of how the pain felt. I keep getting flashbacks of the worst contractions and the pushing. And how sore and just abnormal everything was down there afterwards.

My fears this time are more concrete. Less concerned with theoreticals like a thirty-hour labor or possible surgery, and more with the remembered reality of a pain and body-battering I’d rather not go through, however temporary it was. And somehow these fears are worse, because they are more real. The labor could be better; it could be worse—but either way I know the basics of the inevitable and looking it in the face is harder.

I didn’t realize I was carrying all this around until a few days ago, when I went into a bit of false labor and realized I wasn’t ready to go through with it. We prayed and I dumped all these fears on God and said, look, you take care of it. I believe you can. I’m just going to try to take it one moment at a time. And that has helped. And I have thought more about meeting this little boy inside, how it might feel to love him in the flesh, and that has helped. It also probably helps that I feel practically too pregnant to walk sometimes.

At least I feel like whenever this happens, I will be okay, in the inner part of my mind and spirit that really matters. I might even be a little happy that it’s finally happening.

Journal Excerpt

Here’s what I’m going to remember about the day I turned thirty-one. I’m going to remember sitting in a rocking chair with a swollen belly, singing “doe a deer” at the top of my lungs while she dances around the room hugging her doll. I’m going to remember miming a puppet along to the lyrics, causing her to stand in front of me and giggle so hysterically she nearly turns blue in the face and chokes on her mango.

I’m going to remember D taking her outside to get the mail and the two of them sitting companionably on the porch steps, opening letters and looking out at the lawn.

I’m going to remember him running out to get a slice of lemon cake for me, a slice of strawberry cake for himself, and two candles, which we light at the kitchen table after I put her to bed.

I’m going to remember being close enough that my dad could come visit in the afternoon and help me run an errand.

I’m going to remember wondering if today could be the day the second one comes. I’ll remember feeling the weight of him moving around, making me pee in my pants so many times I had to do the laundry.

But I’m sort of glad he’s not here yet. It’s nice to have the day just for the three of us, for now.

Journal Excerpt

He’s dancing in there again. That feels like the only way to describe the continual movement going on within my innards. Sometimes I am forced to clutch my belly and hold my breath until it passes. I can look down and see his head shifting from one side to another, see his hand poking up on one side while his feet stretch out the other. Someone told me the uterus is thinner the second time around so you feel things more. It’s started to wake me up at night, every few hours. This is what people don’t tell you, that you start to lose sleep even before the baby’s out.

The due date is less than a month away. Home stretch. Nine months is definitely worse the second time around. I feel weighed down, like someone trying to swim with weights around my waist; I have to screw up mental energy before hoisting myself up or bending down to reach something. The list of imperatives that need to get done runs like a news ticker through my mind—organize office, unpack decorations, buy lamps—and none of it gets done. By the time I put her down for a nap, I don’t feel up to doing much more than lying down.

Sometimes I feel if I have to read Cinderella in Chinese or sing The Wheels on the Bus one more time I’m going to lose it. Lose it in that desperate way I used to feel when I walked into the E.R. and saw five more charts in the bin. Back then, that usually meant the same thing it does now: that I need to take a break, shower, and sleep.

So part of what I’m learning is to adjust my expectations, to give myself grace. I have a hard time letting other people take care of E without feeling guilty, which I think stems from my assumption that since I’m not working I should be able to handle it all the time. But this is work. Carrying around a cavorting full-term fetus while entertaining a two year-old is work. So I guess I’ll be okay taking naps. And if someone wants to help watch her so I can actually get out of the house once by myself, I might say yes.

Journal Excerpt

One really great thing about E is that she’s always in a great mood when she wakes up. She likes to sit in her crib and talk or sing to herself, for an indefinite period of time. We stopped using a baby monitor a long time ago, mostly because I’d rather live in ignorance and assume she’s asleep unless I hear anything obvious, but occasionally I’ll sneak up to her room and sit outside her door in the mornings or after her nap. She’ll be talking to the animals in her crib, or her blanket. The other day I heard her counting, “One! two! Three! Four! Nine! Ten!” She’ll recount phrases of the stories she likes to hear, or sing songs really loud and off-tune. Once I heard her say, “mommy loves me.”

I have to admit I freely abuse her good humor in the mornings and take my time going to get her. It’s not unusual for me to hear her wake up at 6:30 A.M. and not go pick her up until 8:00. I think D is slightly horrified by this, but she’s always cheerful enough when I finally make it in her room. Her first words to me will be something completely random, as if we were in the middle of a conversation, like “bunny has eyes” or “mommy’s hair is wet.”

She’s also adopted a charming bedtime routine. Right around 8:30 P.M. I’ll tell her to lie on me a little, and pick her up and she’ll turn very still and lay her head on my shoulder. She asks for a goodnight kiss from daddy and whomever else is in the house, then still with her head on my shoulder we head to her room. I give her the security blanket and pacifier, turn on her sleep music, turn off the lights, and hold her and sing. Lately it’s been “baby mine” from Dumbo, or “I Am” by Jill Phillips, or “You’ll Be In My Heart” from Tarzan. These are my favorite moments, because it’s dark, it’s just me and her, I can feel her head in the crook of my neck and her fingers holding on to me or rubbing my shirt, and I can be still with her. Then I pray, and as soon as I say “amen” she lifts up her head, I lay her down in her crib on her back, pull up her blanket, stroke her hair a few times, and leave the room.

She lies very still and looks at me as I shut the door. Though I peaked back once and verified the fact that as soon as she thinks I’m gone, she scrambles up from the carefully-arranged blanket and lies down on top of it with her head towards the foot of the crib and her butt sticking up in the air.

She turned two this week. It hasn’t been so terrible.