labor

I've been thinking a lot about labor lately. I think it's in part because my good friend Krista just had her second baby, and I've been following what's going on with her. And then The Office episode of Jim and Pam having their baby aired last night. As a slight aside, I was pretty impressed with how (relatively) real they portrayed labor, childbirth, and recovery. Shawn and I actually identified with the emotions, confusion, and sometimes panic that's inevitable.

So the topic of labor seems to be forefront on my mind lately. Maybe it's too early for me to declare this definitively, but at this moment in my pregnancy - I'm not scared of labor. I mean, I'm not an idiot, I know it hurts. I'm not far enough removed from Jude's birth to have any illusions of it being magical and wonderful. It hurt. A lot. I cried and vomited a ton. I begged for an epidural, and if I could have this kid while I was taking a nap with no pain, I totally would.

I think I'm not scared of labor because while I'm toying with the idea of trying it naturally, I happen to know about the wonderfulness that we call an epidural. And with labor, there's a beginning and an end, and at the end of that really difficult work your reward is a brand spankin' new baby. And when you hold that baby, and nurse that baby, and watch it's little yawns and stretches, you know that it's totally worth it.

What does scare me (and is honestly the primary reason why we wanted to wait awhile before having another) is the postpartum recovery. Guys, this part may be a little more descriptive than you'd like. Feel free to skip down to the next paragraph. I mean, your body has just gone through the massive trauma of giving birth, and you're exhausted. Your hoo-ha feels like it's on fire, but you have to wake up every two to three hours only to experience daggers flying from your chest while you try to nurse. You can't walk for weeks (or at least I couldn't), and anytime you DO have a few minutes to rest, you have to spend it taking those stupid sitz baths. And did you know that there is a brand of pads out there (I can't remember the brand, but you can bet I'll be researching it before giving birth) that uses tiny pieces of glass in their construction?! Tiny pieces of GLASS! And yes, those are the pads I used postpartum, and yes, that probably extended my recovery at least an extra week, and yes, that's most likely why it was so painful for me to walk. Because I had glass in my traumatized hoo-ha!

Ahem. Anyway. So when you take that cocktail of physical recovery, mix it with severe lack of sleep and some seriously whacked out hormones, and you get one of the most difficult things I've ever gone through. If I could guarantee that it'd only take a couple of days for my body to recover, that breastfeeding wouldn't be painful, that I'd get a decent amount of sleep, and that my emotions would be stable - I'd pop out three hundred kids. Well, that's a lot of college tuition. Maybe three. But if all those things happened, I understand that it wouldn't be motherhood.

So...I understand that labor will be no fun, but I'm really dreading the weeks and maybe even months that follow labor. I'm hoping to be smarter this time around and be more willing to ask for help when I need it, to give myself time to recover, and to allow myself to be selfish when I need rest, but I'm still finding that I have a lot of anxiety about that postpartum period.

On the flip side, I have a much better perspective this time around. When we were in the throes of infanthood with Jude, I assumed this was my new life as a mother. I assumed I'd never get more than four hours of sleep a night, I'd always be exhausted and in pain, and I would never again have the ability to deal with being overwhelmed. I can see now that even that craziness is a season, and that it'll pass. And then...

And then, my friends, you get the sweet reward of getting your sleep, your body, and your sanity back. And daggone it if that kid doesn't get cuter and cuter every day.

Case in point? Jude and I watching the snow falling the other day. I can't lie - every labor pain, every sitz bath, every painful nursing session, every penguin walk, every tear, every night without sleep - all of it was undoubtedly worth this sweetness: