Yes, it's somehow true: 28 weeks have gone by since this all began (well, technically 26, but why get into the bizarre mathematics of pregnancy at this juncture?) I'm continually growing and swelling and now my thoughts are really turning to the realities of having this child - and I'm finding myself a little scared in a lot of ways. Heck, more than a little scared, as evidenced by breathless crying jags and a sensitivity to everything that I didn't think I was capable of.
"What are you afraid of?", one might scoff, and it's true, that all will be well and we'll figure it all out, I know, but at the same time there are so many worries. I am certainly worried about money and the state of my marriage and my career and taking time off and what will happen with all that - those points, I believe, are obvious. I am also growing more and more uneasy with respect to the acutal birth, as everytiime I am asked about my desire to give birth naturally and with as few counterintuitive interventions as possible, women tend to look at me like I'm crazy - and I'm starting to wonder. Granted, I am meeting tomorrow with my midwife and I am sure much of that will be alleviated when I speak to her, but really, you have to begin to wonder when you receive so many incredulous looks and scoffs and pointed 'Well, if you have a headache you take aspirin, don't you?" lines. Despite the extensive research I have done, all of which points to epidurals prolonging labour, not utilizing the best birthing positions, adding stress to both mother and baby and requiring more interventions including forceps and vaccuum, the links to painful and difficult nursing and inabailities to latch etc etc etc - somehow I seem to be the one who's crazy - and I'm starting to wonder - maybe I can't handle it? It seems to be what everyone is telling me, despite the fact that so many of their birth stories had exactly the complications I spoke of. I worry that maybe I won't be able to handle it, despite having prepared myself all this time for it, despite feeling like a strong and focused woman whose body was created to this cery task. Despite all the intellectual checkmarks, I must face it that maybe I won't be strong enough - but then that insistent voice inside me yells 'WHY NOT?!' - and I begin to relax. It's not that I'm looking forward to an entire day's worth of very difficult and painful birthing, but at the same time, I feel like it is a time to test myself and to be focused and in communion with the whole spiritual side of this experience. I have tested myself physically before and I have always surprised myself, but I still understand that birth is a very dynamic event and that no one can predict how it will go, how I will react, how my body will cope, how my mind will cope, how my baby will cope. I keep telling myself it is like the most difficult river I have ever run - it will be scary and unpredictable, but I have trained for it and I will ride the waves that come. And, I guess, if I have to get out of my boat and walk out (i.e accept interventions) then I damn well will. I will do what is best for my baby.
I really don't know what to think about the whole notion of actually bringing a newborn home and caring for it. It really does highlight the hole Clintonian notion that it really does 'take a village' and my village is so far away! Which is not to say that I don't have friends (many of whom are like family) but mother and grandmother and in-laws are not here to take some of the load off, to help guide us through the newness of it all with the wisdom that has traditionally been passed down from generation to generation. It is hard to help over the phone and sometimes I worry that the beginning will be so over-whelming. In truth, I actually feel like I'll be fine, like buried deep inside myself is the codebook to this experience, but it is then that I wonder if perhaps I am being complacent in my confidence and that is in fact, what makes me worry. That I'm really not as together and prepared as I think I am. I can't say and won't know until the day this one walks in the door with us.
What fears envelope us at different times? It's funny to me that I can still worry myself like an old rag about my career, and my mistakes - which of course, add to the worry about all the ways in which I am doomed to fail this child in the same ways in which I fail myself, my husband, my friends. Understand that this is not the overwhelming sentiment, but certainly an underlying unease that I am simply admitting to because it seems I am admitting to everything here. I feel so much of the middle age injurious and sharpened barbs with which it is so easy to jab oneself. "I didn't do this, I failed at that, that did not go at all how I planned..." - it is the inescapable reality of living; not everything turns out as planned. Perhaps that is really what is scaring me, that I know the truth about how life goes. It does what it wants and though we may try to control it and mold it into our vision of its best path it is like the river - it bends and winds and is powerful and uncontrollable and you can only ride it through and try to catch every eddy you can.
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An update on the other going-on around here: The floors are finished but the finishing is not finished so no pics until it is done done done! They look beautiful but the house is still upsidedown, although only about 30% upsidedown, which is actually a seriouis improvement. More to come...
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