38 Weeks
I've been pregnant for approximately eternity now, and I'm ready to be done.
The first four months were a barren wasteland of barfing and prenatal depression- a phenomenon I'd never heard of before it wiped out all my positive emotions, will to live, and ability to wrest myself from the confines of my futon.
The next two months got a little easier, as the depression lifted and the nausea went from debilitating to inconvenient. I got busy planning my wedding, which was both a good distraction and a whole barrel of unnecessary stress.
The three months since then have been hard in a different way. It's more physical now, as my bump swells out in front of me like a blue-ribbon watermelon. My back and my hips and my feet take the brunt of my discomfort now, instead of my mind and my heart. I have to say, I prefer this. I'll take hemorrhoids over depression any day, hands down. In fact, up until 2 weeks ago, I was happy to stay pregnant forever.
Then I hit 37 weeks, and words like "full term" started being thrown around, and preparations started being made for me actually physically going into labor and, theoretically at least, having an actual human baby.
Since then, I've been seized by the most complicated kind of panic. It's almost a frenzy, this desire to meet this baby, and confirm for my own doubtful mind that it is, in fact, a human baby, and not a particularly persistent and squirmy flu bug. It's also a fervent desire to get the whole labor thing over with.
I've been thinking about labor for what seems like my whole life. My mom had 4 home births after me. Birth was and was not a mystery to me. I knew where babies came from, and I knew how they got in there, and I knew that getting them out was a matter of some unpleasantness. What I didn't understand was how the human body, which normally only produced unpleasant smells and disgusting substances, could be repurposed to create something so perfect. Babies came from vaginas, that much was simple, but where did the souls come from? How did the spark of life imbue a mass of cells forming between the food-holder and the food-extruder? "God" was the coverall of answers, and like coveralls, it was simple and serviceable and ultimately unsatisfying.
I wasn't raised to fear labor. Doctors, yes, and television and refined sugars and cities (especially Los Angeles) and McDonald's, but not labor. Labor was natural, our genetic destiny as women. I still believe this. I'm not sure if what I'm afraid of now is labor itself, or being proven wrong about something I've believed my whole life, or, worst of all, failing to fulfill my genetic destiny. I worry about C-sections, about my body failing me, about panicking and begging for meds and doctors and McDonald's. I'm not as organic as I used to be. I watch television now, and have voluntarily gone to Los Angeles. Maybe I don't have the divine connection to the universe that comes from being vegan and knowing how to macrame. I used to macrame, with rough hemp cord and homemade beads, when I was a homeschooled vegan. But I grew up and followed the siren song if refined sugars. I have a college degree. I have doubted the providence of the Lord and Mother Earth. I dipped a toe in the mainstream, and I'm always afraid of being carried away by the current.
Like many things I'm afraid of, my instinct is to get it over with. As a complusive worrier, I know that once my anxious mind gets hold of something like this, I'll be turning it over and over in my head until it's resolved. So I tend to rush into things like dentist appointments and tests, because the reality of the thing is never as bad as the anticipation.
But there's no way to get labor over with, at least not naturally, at home, with no medical reason. Despite the fact that now, at 38 weeks, this kid is fully formed and perfectly capable of coming out and being a baby, he's free to loaf around like a lazy lounger in my uterus, getting fatter and harder to push out until he's good and ready to come out.
"Just enjoy these last weeks of being pregnant!" well-meaning acquaintances and medical professionals chide. "Enjoy the sleep while you can!"
To which I can only reply with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a wail of misery. There is no sleeping when you're 38 weeks pregnant, roughly the size of Oregon, with a fist against your cervix and a foot in your rips, heartburn eating holes in your esophagus, and the only position you're even marginally comfortable in involves 47 pillows, 2 fans, half a blanket, and a hydraulic lift. Even if I do manage to drift off by some miracle, I'm up half an hour later to empty the half-walnut that has the nerve to call itself my bladder.
The other tactic people employ for the anxious waiting mother is the "think of your baby" ploy. "It's really best for the baby to stay in for as long as possible," they scold gently. "Don't you want the best for your child?"
This is just a low blow by my standards. What am I gonna say? "No, I made it this far through this hellscape of a process only to now not care about my offspring"? Of course I want what's best for my baby. But I've been a life support system for nine and a half months. I've thrown up more in the last nine and a half months than in my entire life before, times two. I've had strangers' hands on my breasts and up my hoohah and all over my belly, in the name of "check ups." I have heartburn, hemorrhoids, stretch marks, no sex drive, no control over my emotions, little control over my bladder, and my organs have all been relocated to the upper third of my ribcage- the attic of my body, if you will. My organs are now the equivalent of an unwanted orphan cousin, while this baby lounges around the first and second floors with the butler and a team of maids. I say this without resentment or regret, but it is undeniably weird. Anyone who says otherwise has been indoctrinated into the cult of Glowing Motherhood, on which we may never be anything but grateful and blissful for our Holy Endeavor, that most sacred of pursuits, the act of bearing life. These are women who will staunchly deny the existence of things like mucus plugs and insist that they certainly never pooped during labor.
"Sure, being pregnant may be uncomfortable," they coo, "but it will all be worth it!"
Great. Awesome. Let's get to the part where it's worth it. I've been a human biodome for 38 weeks now, and I'm ready for the part where snuggling doesn't involve toes in my lungs. But apparently this makes me a Bad Mom.
Ultimately though, scolding me is pointless. I would will myself into labor tonight if I could, but I can't. Like so many things about this pregnancy, I have no control over what happens, or when. It's a pretty frustrating position to be in with your own body/emotions/life. But I have a feeling that surrender is a pretty big part of getting through labor, and parenthood. Control, from this point forward, is an illusion at best.
Of course, knowing that isn't going to stop me from doing anything I can to kickstart this process. If you need me, for the next two weeks I'll be downing hot sauce, walking, bouncing on my yoga ball, scrubbing floors, and swilling raspberry leaf tincture. And I'm thinking of taking up macrame again, just in case.
The first four months were a barren wasteland of barfing and prenatal depression- a phenomenon I'd never heard of before it wiped out all my positive emotions, will to live, and ability to wrest myself from the confines of my futon.
The next two months got a little easier, as the depression lifted and the nausea went from debilitating to inconvenient. I got busy planning my wedding, which was both a good distraction and a whole barrel of unnecessary stress.
The three months since then have been hard in a different way. It's more physical now, as my bump swells out in front of me like a blue-ribbon watermelon. My back and my hips and my feet take the brunt of my discomfort now, instead of my mind and my heart. I have to say, I prefer this. I'll take hemorrhoids over depression any day, hands down. In fact, up until 2 weeks ago, I was happy to stay pregnant forever.
Then I hit 37 weeks, and words like "full term" started being thrown around, and preparations started being made for me actually physically going into labor and, theoretically at least, having an actual human baby.
Since then, I've been seized by the most complicated kind of panic. It's almost a frenzy, this desire to meet this baby, and confirm for my own doubtful mind that it is, in fact, a human baby, and not a particularly persistent and squirmy flu bug. It's also a fervent desire to get the whole labor thing over with.
I've been thinking about labor for what seems like my whole life. My mom had 4 home births after me. Birth was and was not a mystery to me. I knew where babies came from, and I knew how they got in there, and I knew that getting them out was a matter of some unpleasantness. What I didn't understand was how the human body, which normally only produced unpleasant smells and disgusting substances, could be repurposed to create something so perfect. Babies came from vaginas, that much was simple, but where did the souls come from? How did the spark of life imbue a mass of cells forming between the food-holder and the food-extruder? "God" was the coverall of answers, and like coveralls, it was simple and serviceable and ultimately unsatisfying.
I wasn't raised to fear labor. Doctors, yes, and television and refined sugars and cities (especially Los Angeles) and McDonald's, but not labor. Labor was natural, our genetic destiny as women. I still believe this. I'm not sure if what I'm afraid of now is labor itself, or being proven wrong about something I've believed my whole life, or, worst of all, failing to fulfill my genetic destiny. I worry about C-sections, about my body failing me, about panicking and begging for meds and doctors and McDonald's. I'm not as organic as I used to be. I watch television now, and have voluntarily gone to Los Angeles. Maybe I don't have the divine connection to the universe that comes from being vegan and knowing how to macrame. I used to macrame, with rough hemp cord and homemade beads, when I was a homeschooled vegan. But I grew up and followed the siren song if refined sugars. I have a college degree. I have doubted the providence of the Lord and Mother Earth. I dipped a toe in the mainstream, and I'm always afraid of being carried away by the current.
Like many things I'm afraid of, my instinct is to get it over with. As a complusive worrier, I know that once my anxious mind gets hold of something like this, I'll be turning it over and over in my head until it's resolved. So I tend to rush into things like dentist appointments and tests, because the reality of the thing is never as bad as the anticipation.
But there's no way to get labor over with, at least not naturally, at home, with no medical reason. Despite the fact that now, at 38 weeks, this kid is fully formed and perfectly capable of coming out and being a baby, he's free to loaf around like a lazy lounger in my uterus, getting fatter and harder to push out until he's good and ready to come out.
"Just enjoy these last weeks of being pregnant!" well-meaning acquaintances and medical professionals chide. "Enjoy the sleep while you can!"
To which I can only reply with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a wail of misery. There is no sleeping when you're 38 weeks pregnant, roughly the size of Oregon, with a fist against your cervix and a foot in your rips, heartburn eating holes in your esophagus, and the only position you're even marginally comfortable in involves 47 pillows, 2 fans, half a blanket, and a hydraulic lift. Even if I do manage to drift off by some miracle, I'm up half an hour later to empty the half-walnut that has the nerve to call itself my bladder.
The other tactic people employ for the anxious waiting mother is the "think of your baby" ploy. "It's really best for the baby to stay in for as long as possible," they scold gently. "Don't you want the best for your child?"
This is just a low blow by my standards. What am I gonna say? "No, I made it this far through this hellscape of a process only to now not care about my offspring"? Of course I want what's best for my baby. But I've been a life support system for nine and a half months. I've thrown up more in the last nine and a half months than in my entire life before, times two. I've had strangers' hands on my breasts and up my hoohah and all over my belly, in the name of "check ups." I have heartburn, hemorrhoids, stretch marks, no sex drive, no control over my emotions, little control over my bladder, and my organs have all been relocated to the upper third of my ribcage- the attic of my body, if you will. My organs are now the equivalent of an unwanted orphan cousin, while this baby lounges around the first and second floors with the butler and a team of maids. I say this without resentment or regret, but it is undeniably weird. Anyone who says otherwise has been indoctrinated into the cult of Glowing Motherhood, on which we may never be anything but grateful and blissful for our Holy Endeavor, that most sacred of pursuits, the act of bearing life. These are women who will staunchly deny the existence of things like mucus plugs and insist that they certainly never pooped during labor.
"Sure, being pregnant may be uncomfortable," they coo, "but it will all be worth it!"
Great. Awesome. Let's get to the part where it's worth it. I've been a human biodome for 38 weeks now, and I'm ready for the part where snuggling doesn't involve toes in my lungs. But apparently this makes me a Bad Mom.
Ultimately though, scolding me is pointless. I would will myself into labor tonight if I could, but I can't. Like so many things about this pregnancy, I have no control over what happens, or when. It's a pretty frustrating position to be in with your own body/emotions/life. But I have a feeling that surrender is a pretty big part of getting through labor, and parenthood. Control, from this point forward, is an illusion at best.
Of course, knowing that isn't going to stop me from doing anything I can to kickstart this process. If you need me, for the next two weeks I'll be downing hot sauce, walking, bouncing on my yoga ball, scrubbing floors, and swilling raspberry leaf tincture. And I'm thinking of taking up macrame again, just in case.
Awesome writing. Thank you God I was born male.
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