Jul
28
I love reading birth stories, especially when the author is able to really describe the process in unflinching, funny-only-in-retrospect detail. I love in Waiting for Birdy when Catherine says she “made a creepy didgeridoo sound for 16 hours straight, said ‘Kill me’, then barfed into a trash can.” I love the written choo-choo pantings of laboring women, the geysering bodily fluids, and best of all—of course—the slimy, squalling, heartbreaking result to the whole ordeal.
I have a much harder time reading about the bravery involved with so-called natural births (as though any viable entrance into this world should be described as unnatural). The powerful, indescribable wonder of a drug-free birth, the gift the mother is giving her baby by choosing to be so very strong. The floored wonder of her partner, standing nearby marveling at this pinnacle of human achievement.
It’s not that I don’t understand this. I fully acknowledge the superwoman qualities of someone who endures hours of the most challenging physical situation of her entire life and refusing the intervention that could make it less painful. I am awed by women who have the birthing experience they wanted, that they read about and prepared for and engineered to conform to their preferences.
I understand it and I can empathize with it, but it hurts, a little. I thought I would have that moment of turning to my husband and saying, it’s time. The escalation of it all, the trip to the hospital, the scariness and elation and pain and everything else. Instead, it was a routine visit followed by hours of being drugged and sick and miserable and eventually a surgery and I felt as far from brave as it’s possible for a person to feel.
I guess I will always wonder, was it absolutely necessary for me to be put on the magnesium with Riley? Were they erring too far on the side of being conservative, wasn’t there something else they could do to deal with the blood pressure situation? I felt perfectly fine when I walked in the door, and next thing I knew I was hooked to an IV and gripped by the effects of the medication.
The second thing I wonder about: after the hours of Cervidil with no effect, and the progression of feeling worse and worse with the magnesium, they gave me a choice of Pitocin or trying to rest overnight and having a C-section in the morning. I asked a nurse to be as honest with me as she could, did she think the Pitocin would work in time? They wanted to do the C-section in the morning anyway, because of my blood pressure. She paused, and shook her head. She said it was doubtful. I thought about dealing with the Pitocin-triggered pain all night long, on top of the unrelenting nausea and aching head and trembling, exhausted muscles the magnesium was causing, only to need the surgery anyway. I chose to try and rest.
Maybe I should have tried the goddamned Pitocin, you know? Maybe there would have been a different outcome. Maybe if I had done that, both my babies would have been born without use of a scalpel and a drape.
I don’t have bad feelings about either of my C-sections. They weren’t terrible, they were fine. I saw my babies right away and held them moments later. I recovered with no problems. It was fine.
But. It doesn’t feel brave. It doesn’t feel like that magical spiritual I-am-woman-hear-me-roar experience I now have such a hard time hearing about. I’m torn between thinking, well, that’s great for you, but not everyone gets the birth they thought they were going to have, and my babies came into this world perfect in every way and you know what, we’re ALL brave . . . and I wish I could have had that. I should have tried harder.
Still, still. It’s not too difficult to regain perspective.
August 31, 2005
February 2, 2008
Jul
27
He beelines for the place where the hose was dripping and swishes his hand through the muddy water before slowly, contemplatively bringing his fingers to his mouth. Shooed from his dirt-eating, he scampers across the yard and before I can blink he’s reaching for a dog turd, his tiny brow furrowed in concentration.
We dress him in toddler-sized swim trunks and he joyously climbs the tiny built-in slide in the plastic play pool before his feet shoot out from under him and his body somehow goes completely horizontal in midair and he bangs his head with a sickening crash and there are screams and tears and cuddles and two seconds later, he’s climbing that fucking slide again.
No, Dylan, I say as he tries to escape with his father’s computer mouse. “WAHHHH!” he responds, and runs at top speed to the bookshelf and begins pulling books off the shelves, one after another. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
He creeps along the patio after a trundling black ant and carefully reaches out a pudgy index finger and accidentally smooshes it. He stares, nearly cross-eyed, and his finger is almost on his tongue when I swoop in. I reposition him and he howls with fury and locks his eyes on mine and reaches down and with vengeful, deliberate motions he quickly stuffs a passing tumbleweed of dog hair IN HIS MOUTH.
I’m bent over the dishwasher collecting forks and spoons when SMACK! something slaps me directly across the ass. I turn, and he’s standing there with a mile-wide grin, laughing so hard he’s swaying back and forth. In his hands is a large plastic spatula.
There is a long silence and even though I know better I revel in it a bit and when I finally go to look for him, I find him shoulder-deep in the toilet bowl. He’s so startled when I burst through the door he falls backwards onto his butt, then sits there smiling at me and starts chomping on his toilet-water-soaked fingers.
He falls off the front steps. The back porch. The raised portion of our backyard garden bed. A chair. Another chair. The wooden steps at the cabin in Oregon. The curb of the driveway. The sofa.
I catch him. I don’t. I let him fall. I run to save him at top speed. I absorb the impact of his skull heading earthward with the top of my foot. I watch him, wincing. I watch him, clapping.
He grunts his way onto the couch, then gets himself turned around, spreads his arms and sort of half-jumps, half-falls off, but not before saying, “De inny! An bee!” I goggle open mouthed as I realize he’s imitating his Buzz Lightyear-loving brother: to infinity, and beyond.
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