WE’RE HAVING A BABY: A Three-Act Traumedy (traumatic-comedy)
There are certain things you are not told about childbirth. And even if you are told, you don’t “get it” until it’s happening. Now everybody’s experience is different, ranging from a walk in the park (you lucky devils) to mortal combat. But what we do share in common is an intense experience charged with emotion. I’m sharing my experience in the hopes that at best, you will relate to some of it and at the very least, you won’t be afraid or ashamed to express that it was HARD in spite of the beautiful result.
ACT I: “She broke her water”
That’s how the news travelled to the rest of my family via my dear father. After almost nine months, this was really happening. Through bouts of nausea, foot pain, acid reflux, having your uterus take over your body, and replacing walking with waddling, it was go-time. Excitement and anticipation, mixed in with an increasing dose of fear.
It was not as crazy as water-breaking scenes in the movies. Yet already, all the stuff they told me in childbirth class, coming into the hospital casually while contractions were five minutes apart, had faded into the background. As I pulled up to the hospital, I had a feeling I would need to prepare for battle.
ACT II: If you want to hear God laugh, make plans.
There is a dizzying amount of information out there about pregnancy and childbirth. I’m sure some of it is helpful to some people. But ignorance would have been bliss for me. I wish I watched old seasons of Gilmore Girls as my little sister suggested. Instead terms like natural birth, induction, epidural, doula, birth plan, skin-to-skin, and hypno-birthing danced around in my head.
Essentially, everything we prepared for or planned on, the opposite happened. My husband and I wanted to avoid being induced. But we were in a baby factory so they induced the heck out of me! I wanted to keep the pain drugs at a minimum. The strength of the contractions, now intensified because of induction, inspired me to request any and every drug available. Did they have tranquilizers meant for large animals on hand? I wanted to be able to push naturally and go with the flow of the contractions…. Well, you get the picture. Luckily my husband exceeded even my greatest expectations and remained a steady anchor of love and support throughout the arduous journey. In the end, after an emergency C-section, we had a beautiful, tiny baby boy. No one can prepare you for or truly describe that first moment together. So I won’t even try.
ACT III: The Aftermath so far
Women have been having babies since the beginning of time. In South Asia and other regions, women give birth in their homes, even in rice paddies, and then go back to work. Some family members would have you believe they also did that, when clearly they did not. I love my South Asian family and roots but eeking out a child no matter when, where or how, is truly an ordeal that deserves its own recognition. Not to mention coming to terms with the realization that you are now a mother to another living being. Sometimes that is taken for granted. Or at least, that is how I felt when some of my relatives would try and make me feel better by minimizing what I was going through. I felt like an oversized vehicle had hit me repeatedly, and that I should be entitled time to process. Even if I didn’t give birth to twins in a one-room house without electricity and a doctor, I was still tired and in pain. My hormones were raging; I felt elated and devastated almost at the same time. I think at one point I even burst into tears while telling a nurse my name.
On top of that, I had no clue on where to start with breastfeeding. Well, I did have a general idea but NO ONE tells you how challenging it can and continues to be. And the politics of breastfeeding in the U.S. doesn’t make it any easier. While culturally, nursing seemed the logical choice, many folks here didn’t realize they were preaching to the choir. Their new-wave breastfeeding movement was replete with lactation consultants ranging from extremely helpful to breastfeeding fascists. On one occasion, a more Nazi-like lactation consultant at the hospital, who looked close to 200 years old, whipped around and militantly asked if my mother breastfed her children. My mother was tempted to say that she still was.
In any case, with time, I think I have had moderate success in giving myself permission to accept the experience for what it was. For me it was good, bad, messy, ugly, traumatic, funny, beautiful, surreal, and humbling. I learned that it is OK to not be OK for a while. It will get better eventually, and so it has over weeks and months.
Plus I need to gear up for the next round involving learning to be a parent. I’m told that adventure is only beginning…
