Unbuckling or What Pregnancy Has Been For Me
Last month we started a birth class and I LOVE IT. It's so wild to be in a room with four other couples who are due around the same time as you. It's also wild to be in a room full of New Yorkers who have to share THEIR FEELINGS to a bunch of relative strangers. So far our topics of discussion have included "What pregnancy has been to me?" and "How do I handle stress and pain?" What I like most about these classes is that the men do most of the asking of questions. As our teacher said in the first class, the women spend the first 6 months of the pregnancy reading and getting educated, and then the birthing classes are for the men to catch up. There is a sweetness to my ears when men ask questions like, "What does EFFACEMENT mean?" And "Is it true that you can't have a vaginal birth after a C-section?" Also, I have loved to listen to what their answers have been to the above questions about the pregnancy and stress and pain.
When I had to answer what pregnancy has been to me I realized that although I've known HUNDREDS of women who have been pregnant and had babies throughout my life, I feel like my own pregnancy is the VERY FIRST ONE TO EVER OCCUR. I don't mean that in the narcissistic way it sounds. I mean it as an experience I took for granted outwardly, but as I've experienced it personally, I find it a TOTALLY alien and astonishing. Why didn't anyone ever tell me about it, I want to say, but of course, they have. I just didn't know or GET IT. I need to admit that it hasn't been at all what I expected or even hoped. It hasn't been HORRIBLE either. It's been a RIDE and continues to be. It's been a challenge emotionally--some of it due to my circumstance, some of it due to hormones, some of it due to just who I am. I don't LOVE getting a muscle pulled just ROLLING OVER in bed. I also don't love the difficulty of getting out of chairs or the pain of my skin stretching. What I do love? Feeling the baby move. I will miss that, I think. I love that private relationship we have and the mystery that surrounds it. Every time I watch one of those birth videos in the class I can HARDLY BELIEVE that one day I will feel him move and the next I'll be STARING AT HIS FACE. And the REAL crazy part? This is how we all get here! How how how IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Right now I am getting very curious and excited to experience birth. Taking these classes has made me change some thoughts I didn't know I had. One of the things I didn't realize is how much I was building a fort of thought and expectation (and worry) around both the birth date and the possibility of a long labor. What if the baby is LATE? What if I go to the birthing center after hours and hours of laboring only to find out I've only DILATED to THREE CENTIMETERS? I am not a patient person. I also can get (ahem) discouraged easily. The first things that blew my mind was when Shara, our teacher, explained that only 2% of babies come on the due date and that in actuality we have a five week range of normal birth time. So while my due date was originally December 7 (and then 10th and now the 12th), I could actually have this kid anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have asked Graham that we stop using the due date all together and when people ask any one of us when we are due just to say, "December." This has helped me UNBUCKLE some of my need for control over when he comes.
The same goes for labor and the information around dilation and effacement. I don't think I want to know that information as I labor because of the meaning I attach so strongly to it. I'd rather just experience THE LABOR and not the numbers, otherwise I could see myself getting frustrated or worried and not be focused on what my body and my baby are telling me to do.
THIS IS RADICAL thinking on my end. I am a list maker, a person who counts down minutes when she is bored or waiting for something impatiently. I cling to MARKERS to tell me where and how I am, but there is something really powerful for me to just let that stuff go and to experience the moment to moment of it. It will be what it will be, and it feels good to just MAKE ROOM for what ever experience it becomes.
When I had to answer what pregnancy has been to me I realized that although I've known HUNDREDS of women who have been pregnant and had babies throughout my life, I feel like my own pregnancy is the VERY FIRST ONE TO EVER OCCUR. I don't mean that in the narcissistic way it sounds. I mean it as an experience I took for granted outwardly, but as I've experienced it personally, I find it a TOTALLY alien and astonishing. Why didn't anyone ever tell me about it, I want to say, but of course, they have. I just didn't know or GET IT. I need to admit that it hasn't been at all what I expected or even hoped. It hasn't been HORRIBLE either. It's been a RIDE and continues to be. It's been a challenge emotionally--some of it due to my circumstance, some of it due to hormones, some of it due to just who I am. I don't LOVE getting a muscle pulled just ROLLING OVER in bed. I also don't love the difficulty of getting out of chairs or the pain of my skin stretching. What I do love? Feeling the baby move. I will miss that, I think. I love that private relationship we have and the mystery that surrounds it. Every time I watch one of those birth videos in the class I can HARDLY BELIEVE that one day I will feel him move and the next I'll be STARING AT HIS FACE. And the REAL crazy part? This is how we all get here! How how how IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Right now I am getting very curious and excited to experience birth. Taking these classes has made me change some thoughts I didn't know I had. One of the things I didn't realize is how much I was building a fort of thought and expectation (and worry) around both the birth date and the possibility of a long labor. What if the baby is LATE? What if I go to the birthing center after hours and hours of laboring only to find out I've only DILATED to THREE CENTIMETERS? I am not a patient person. I also can get (ahem) discouraged easily. The first things that blew my mind was when Shara, our teacher, explained that only 2% of babies come on the due date and that in actuality we have a five week range of normal birth time. So while my due date was originally December 7 (and then 10th and now the 12th), I could actually have this kid anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have asked Graham that we stop using the due date all together and when people ask any one of us when we are due just to say, "December." This has helped me UNBUCKLE some of my need for control over when he comes.
The same goes for labor and the information around dilation and effacement. I don't think I want to know that information as I labor because of the meaning I attach so strongly to it. I'd rather just experience THE LABOR and not the numbers, otherwise I could see myself getting frustrated or worried and not be focused on what my body and my baby are telling me to do.
THIS IS RADICAL thinking on my end. I am a list maker, a person who counts down minutes when she is bored or waiting for something impatiently. I cling to MARKERS to tell me where and how I am, but there is something really powerful for me to just let that stuff go and to experience the moment to moment of it. It will be what it will be, and it feels good to just MAKE ROOM for what ever experience it becomes.
Labels: pregnancy
posted by Summer Pierre at
6:55 AM
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