I was at a friend's birthday party when it happened again. Word had got out that I was pregnant, and it didn't take long for one of the guests, a woman I had only met twice in my life, to come barreling across the room, eyes shining with the unwavering focus of someone about to cut a line of cocaine.
I have seen this look a lot lately. It is the same expression that forms in one pair of crazy eyes after another whenever someone -- usually a woman -- catches wind of my baby bump.
"Here's what they don't tell you," she said by way of congratulations. "You will be split apart from your vagina to your anus." Then she began a delightful discourse on hemorrhoids.
Over the past six months or so, I've been told all sorts of things "they don't tell you." Like what will happen to my boobs, which will either disappear entirely, or shapeshift into two deflated bread bags. Or how, according to one friend, "they don't let you leave the hospital until you poop." And don't forget the ripped stitches that will inevitably happen on that maiden bathroom voyage.
When I'm not hearing about the wreckage about to befall my body, I'm listening to delivery stories that rival the gore fest of Alien. "I still can't get over the image of seeing blood on my doctor's eyeglasses," whispered one friend in that voice normally heard only in tents, with a flashlight under the chin, in front of a troop of Girl Scouts.
Why, I wonder, do people, do friends, feel so compelled to tell me such horror stories? At 13 weeks I heard all the miscarriage stories (having suffered one myself in the past, I already know that brand of agony firsthand) and now, at 25 weeks, I'm treated to stories that are even more heartbreaking. Who knew I had so many friends within Six-Degrees-of-Stillborn Separation?
"I want to tell you my amnio story," says the mother of a little boy. It's how most of these stories begin.
"Please don't tell me anything bad," I say. Which is how most of my responses begin. "I will get up and leave the room."
But she tells me anyway -- even with my hand held up like a stop sign the entire time.
As a born-and-bred worrywart, I've already invented and told all these stories to myself. I'm sure most pregnant women do, at one point or another. There's a lot that can go wrong during those nine months. And in all the months that accompany a child into adulthood.
And I do understand the need to boast a bit by sharing their delivery room war stories. I must be a strong woman, they are trying to say, to survive something like this. Perhaps people think they are doing me a favor by preparing me for what's to come, like it's some sort of duty to tell me about gestational diabetes and premature labor. Maybe this is akin to initiation into a club, the Masonic Lodge of Mommies.
Whatever the underlying reason is, please, keep your harrowing baby stories on the shelf. If you see me and my belly coming down the street, stick to more accepted forms of communication, like a hug or sincere displays of joy. Words like "How wonderful," work well, too.
Of course I realize as soon as I give birth, I'll have to steel myself for a whole new batch of terror. My mother-in-law is already lining up her story about breastfeeding.
For weeks after you give birth, you will be swamped with hormones that remove all the bad stuff. You remember it all happening, but you don't re-live any of the pain/discomfort. It all becomes sort of, okay. It just becomes a distant memory, and you will speak the events as if they were a tv show you watched. This is why so many women seem to revel in the gory details -- because they are detatched from them. This is also why so very few women (although it does happen) have PTSD after giving birth.
The worst is the tsking women who wonder what's wrong with me when I say I want to do a natural, drug-free delivery. Women the world over do this every day and come back for more. If things are going well, why would I want to introduce extra risk into the delivery? No one has ever died from the pain of childbirth. It's over in less than a day and it's pain with a prize at the end. I'm sure I can survive if I've lived through broken bones, stitches, and migraine headaches. I didn't ask for any of those aches and pains, but I sure did get pregnant on purpose.
To be sure, mine had gestational diabetes, but it wasn't hard to manage. And labor? My epidural worked great, and I had fun. I slept 4 of the 9 hours, did about 90 minutes of 'hard' labor that I didn't even feel, and pop! Happy baby boy.
Now, potty training - *that's* a pending horror story!
I don't understand why anyone would tell a mom-to-be horror stories about labor.
I always give the same advice that helped me... with every pain, tell yourself that it's nothing, the next one will be worse, that way, when you're pushing, you're still waiting for the pain that you can't bear. When you have your child, ever pain will have been more than worth it... you get a euphoria that wipes the slate clean and then, you have a baby to love more than life itself.
I had very long pregnancies (10 months with each of my boys) and very quick labors (5 hours with each). My first pregnancy was complicated because I listened to a doctor who wasn't worth listening to.. my second was a breeze because I listened to myself.
For moms-to-be... labor's not as bad as you've heard and the results are better than you can imagine!
I've told my slightly bad labor story to friends who've had their babies and we're sharing our war stories but when I'm talking to a mom-to-be, it's my wonderful labor that I share and my tips for helping to get through easier. My first labor was negative because I had a bad doctor and a really bad labor nurse so I tell them what to look for in a doctor and to listen to their own instincts