My daughter is nine months old today. Nine months ago, I was exactly nine months pregnant when I painfully pushed her little being into this world. Nine months ago, I only had one child, a son, who was 2 ½. I thought that since I had been through the pain once before, I would be better able to keep ahead of it the second time around. I wouldn't need pain medication at all because I didn't remember it being so bad and now that I knew what to expect, I would be able to deal with my labor like the women in the movies do - a few quiet pushes and out pops a beautiful two-month-old who is alert and cooing and clean.
As if my first labor wasn't enough of a reality check for me, my second one took me down a few notches. For starters, I had contractions and was dilated for two weeks before I actually delivered. Then my midwife announced that my daughter was “sunny side up”, and because of that, she was not perfectly centered and ready to drop and help with the laboring process. So when D-day came, oh was there back-labor. I cannot even begin to describe the burning sensation that preceded and then followed every contraction. I tell myself now that I could have dealt with just the contractions in a much more ladylike manner; it was the back labor that put it over the top, but I think we all lie to ourselves about our next delivery and that's what helps us go through with it again and again.
My midwife informed me that my daughter had already passed her mecconium and I would not be able to hold my daughter after delivering her, due to the fact that she may have ingested some and would have to be examined right away. As if that weren't scary enough, having to listen to my midwife page the doctor to be on call and watching them between fiery bursts in my back set up emergency medical equipment next to the bed, my daughter's heart rate continued to drop with each contraction, meaning that her oxygen was being cut off.
My daughter was brought into this world with a little thump on the bed (I was repositioned by my nurse on my hands and knees for the final stretch). When I saw her, she was a white-blue and the cord was around her neck. That was all I saw of her for thirty minutes while they checked her over. She pinked up once she was able to breath and she had not ingested anything into her lungs. My beautiful Emma Rose was 7 lbs, 5 oz and 20 ½ inches long. And, to soothe previous and now not so important worries, she had a perfectly round head. She looked just like her brother and had the longest fingers and toes to ever come from a mammal other than a primate. She latched on right away, and slept a solid 6 hours that first night in the hospital and every night from then on.
My first labor with my son was hard because I was 18, married for two months and scared out of my mind. That labor was physically hard because I had never encountered anything so challenging and so independently up to me. I had always had the option to pass on offers and activities, and they had always been about me. That delivery was one of the first things in my adult life that was without question something I had to follow through on completely.
And it was certainly symbolic of the rest of my life; after delivering, I had to follow through on continuing to raise and care for this little person for the rest of my life. Isaac and I have such a bond because he showed me through his own little appearance in my life that being a mother is the hardest and most painful thing I will ever endure. He literally could not survive without his mommy and that made me the most important person on the face of the earth, at least to him.
With Emma, I thought that I was going to breeze through the labor and delivery because I had been-there-done-that. I was wrong then and I should have taken the hint from her delivery that just because I had done this parenting thing before didn't mean I had her all figured out.
I don't think we will ever be prepared for labor the way we think we will be, with our first, second, or our fifth. Each child is so fearfully unique that they all need their own delivery story to go along with them. Each delivery is a reminder of the pain that we will endure - physically and emotionally - raising them and loving them the rest of our lives. It is a prerequisite that every mother must face before entering motherhood, to strengthen her and test her breaking point.
Babies need their own stories from the very beginning of their fragile existence; they need their own place in the world and in our hearts. If we didn't go through the back labor, the fear of a lopsided head or panic due to a health threat, we wouldn't be prepared to face the rest of our lives with them. Delivering that little sweet thing is God's way of telling us that times will be tough but there is a beautiful reward in the end for everyone.
Your body is teaching you what being a mother is about. It is inner turmoil about doing the best for your child, and sometimes taking advice from others. It is about preparing for the next contraction in life, staying one step ahead of your little baby so they think you know what you are doing when you are really just hanging on for dear life. Motherhood is the pain of bringing your child through the hard times in your lives and knowing that you will both be okay in the end and that while you will remember you were in pain, it will dull with time, and you will always learn something from it and be willing to do it all over again for the sake of love.
Labor is also the literal form of allowing your child to separate from you; someday your “baby” will yet again be independent enough to leave you and you will have to cut the cord and let them enter the world and it will be painful to know they are no longer literally a part of you, but it will be a joyful time as well, seeing what a great job you did and knowing that they will be spectacular. Labor and delivery give you the confidence to know that what you started, you can finish and in the end it is all totally worth doing again.
