For me, the hardest part about being pregnant was not the swelling or the nausea, not the weight gain or the heartburn.
It was listening to people's birth stories.
Well meaning as they might have been, invariably they were horrific. True scenes out of Dexter. There was always a lot of blood, guts and screaming, so much so that I was convinced the only way they were going to get this kid out of me was if they knocked me out completely and, if by some miracle I survived the ordeal, woke me when it was over.
Well, I'm here to tell you that is not how the great majority of births go down. In fact, according to my OB, 9 out of 10 births are completely uneventful, without complications and craziness, very little crying (except for joy when you see you healthy little baby), no screaming, and no major blood (that you actually see). I know this because the birth of my daughter has gone into the record books as the Easiest Birth Ever. I'm telling this story now because I want to offer hope to all of the petrified preggos out there that spend way too much time watching those terrifying birth shows on TLC (please stop watching those shows!!! They will only scare the crap out of you!).
Let me start by saying that on the morning I went into labor, I had absolutely no idea I was actually in labor. I woke up that morning feeling, for lack of a better term, yucky. Yucky being different than the generally uncomfortable feeling that most third trimester women refer to as Normal. Basically, no position was comfortable, I felt somewhat edgy and oddly nervous. Laying down was wrong, standing felt weird, sitting was the worst.
I guess I just have to keep moving...I will cook breakfast, I thought. Scrambling eggs over a hot stove will definitely make me feel better (logic isn't strong in the pregnant brain). Amazingly, I felt a bit better standing there at the stove, but as I continued to scramble my eggs, the uncomfortable feeling returned. After about a minute, I felt a little better. A few minutes later, the achy and yucky feeling was back. Mind you, I was in no pain, just ...blah.
I looked at the clock. Blah lasted for about one minute, Better lasted for about five minutes. And so on.
Am I in labor? No. Labor is supposed to be water-breaking, panting, panic and lots of pain...right? The pattern continued, but I was definitely not in any form of pain. Weird. I told my husband this and he immediately went into high gear, getting our things, and generally starting to pant and panic. We must go to the hospital right now! he said.
I wasn't convinced. I ate my breakfast and took a shower.
I begrudgingly agreed to go to the hospital, believing completely that the nurses were going to roll their eyes and send me home with instructions not to return unless I had achieved some level of pain, blood or guts. I really hoped they were going to send me home, because I had some laundry to do.
When we got to the hospital an hour later, I still felt fine, albeit blah. As the nurse hooked me up to the fetal monitor, I was apologizing, saying there's no way I'm in labor, I'm wasting their time. After about fifteen minutes on the monitor, the nurse announced that yes, I was in active labor with solid contractions every three minutes. She then checked and determined I was already dilated to four.
What?! How could that be? I hadn't had any pain, screaming or blood yet! But the monitor doesn't lie, so I believed her... though I was still completely confused as to why this labor felt like PMS, at best.
Next she asked if I'd like an epidural. Sure, why not? I'm not in one iota of pain, but if you're offering, I'll take it. (I've watched enough TLC shows to know what's coming if I say no). In comes the very nice and friendly anesthesiologist, who gives me a pinprick in the back (not even remotely kidding) and proceeds to place the epidural, of which I feel nothing.
Now I am completely numb from the waist down and still shocked that this is what "labor" is. My husband and I spent the next the few hours chatting, reading magazines and watching tv. You know, a typical Sunday afternoon.
During a rather enjoyable episode of Friends, the nurse comes in to check my progress. Apparently the baby is crowning. Don't push, she says, let's wait for the doctor to get here. Crowning? You've got to be kidding me! I'm right as rain and you're telling me the baby is on the verge of popping right out? No pain or even some pressure? Ok, whatever you say...
A flurry of nurses came in and the doctor arrived, putting my legs in the stirrups. My husband and I looked at each other - is this really happening?
I pushed three times and closed my eyes, because I thought this would be the blood and guts part. I opened my eyes, fully expecting to have to push for another three hours (because that's how it's supposed to happen, right?), but low and behold, there's she was. I hadn't felt a thing. For a split second I thought they must have brought this child in from central casting because there's no way something that big just came out of my body and I didn't feel a thing. While she was slimy, as newborns are, the Dexter scene didn't materialize and there were lots of smiles and happy tears.
Then we started to laugh. Hard. All of the terror about childbirth that we had worked ourselves into vanished. The Nightmare-Carrie-Exorcist experience that we had previously accepted as our fate to bring our child into the world didn't happen at all.
And right then and there, we agreed that we could never tell anyone how truly easy this birth was because no one would ever believe us. And you may not, but it's the honest truth. Birth can be downright pleasant. So the next time someone tells you about their own horror story, just remember the easiest birth story ever. It may just turn out that way for you, too.
