(almost) Speechless

I wouldn’t trade you, little boy, for anything.

I remember the first month we had him home, Skeet and I looked at each other in one particularly exhausted moment and we both asked “what have we gotten ourselves into?” Now he’s been with us two months and I feel he’s always been meant to be here.

Nobody can possibly understand the love of a mother until they become one. I didn’t.

Looking into my son’s face is impossibly beautiful. I’m imperfect. I’m a total mess. I’ve forgotten to get us to our Baptism and Church registration, I forgot to pick up an order for the makeup class I taught, I forgot to make four mustaches for a show I’m doing and had to get up at 7 the other morning to finish all of my forgotten work, I have cried and bitched that I can’t do it, that I’m not capable, not good enough, that I’m fat, that I’m sore from my surgery, that I’m scared…but he’s perfect. He’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen, that I’ve ever made. My husband and I made a human being. A smiley, sweet-scented, wide-eyed, innocent little boy. He does nothing wrong. He lives for us to hold him close, to give him milk, for his teddy bear mobile, and to hear us sing to him. His joy and his rage are all on the surface-he hides nothing, fakes nothing. He is exactly what he is. I want his wonder of the ceiling fan and his stuffed elephant to last forever. I can’t imagine him a jaded teenager, a rowdy college kid, a tired middle aged man, or a broken old one. I can’t imagine him standing in the fullness of all his life. I just see my infant son. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Heartbreakingly, painfully beautiful.

The first eight weeks…what a blur. The first 4 were insanely hard. I said a million times to myself that I couldn’t do it. I’m doing it. We’re doing it.

My sadness over my surgery is getting better. Yes, I accepted it. I think the codeine helped initially… But I have to admit, there was (is) deep pain at not getting the birth I dreamed of. I put so much into wanting a home birth. I threw myself into the dream and never wavered for a second that I was going to get exactly what I dreamed of. There has been some real pain that I had a medicated birth with a C-section. I chose to take a leap, and put my faith into something with my whole heart, with absolutely no reservations. It’s the most passionate decision I have ever made. And it didn’t work. And there is a part of my mind that repeats in a loop “your body doesn’t work.” That’s painful. Whether or not it’s rational is irrelevant. It hurts. When you put your faith into something, (which is a rare thing to do in our cynical world) and that something decides that there are other plans, your mind is going to struggle to make sense of it. And unfortunately, there is no sense to be made of it. There has been a bit of grief that it didn’t happen.

And yes, I know, I have a perfect baby boy, no matter the way he got here. But try to tell that to a woman who has been C-sectioned-your rational remark is going to fall on deaf ears. Being C-sectioned has made me feel a little cheated. I wanted to push my son out. I wanted him to slip into my husband’s hands. I wanted to hold him immediately. I wanted to get up after he was born and be whole and ready to take over the world. I wanted his entry into the world to be quiet and unmedicated and loving and in a room full of people that knew and loved both of us. Instead, EVERYTHING i didn’t want to happen in his birth happened. Hospital, drugs, doctor, surgery, bright lights, and not getting to hold him right away. In fact, not getting to hold him for what seemed like hours. I know he needed help, but in my heart, I know he also needed me first. I needed him.

This will, and is, eventually working itself out. Lots of reflection and help from others helps. But I had some serious postpartum rage going there for a while, and I really wanted something to blame it on.

Jude was vaccinated for the first time a few days ago, and he screamed. His scream was one I had never heard before-he was in pain, and when he turned his tiny face to me, his mother, and looked in my eyes with that confusion and pain, I sobbed. I had my first experience of “I’m a mommy, and I’m here to protect my baby from pain, and I couldn’t do that for him and won’t always be able to and it kills me” moment.

This is definitely a time, with the huge media frenzy going on over a certain notorious young mother, that we can ask ourselves “how could any mother hurt her child?”

I would never trade you, Jude. Not for anything. My old life is gone, and I could care less. The fact that I went out today with your spit up on my shoulder and some salsa stuck in my hair from you slapping my lunch out of my hand and pee on my shirt didn’t matter to me at all. I kept thinking the whole time I was out “I’m a mom and nobody knows because Jude isn’t here.” I wanted people to know I was your mom. I’m so proud of you. You fill my heart right in the spot God left empty in it just so you could fill it. There is nothing so glorious to me as coaxing a smile from you, giving you a bath while you fuss at me, and comforting you when you ask me to. I need you as much as you need me, because I’m the best me I’ve ever been when I hold you.

I love you, little angel. You can ALWAYS trust me.

My home birth, my hospital birth

I feel like I had both. Videos and pics to post soon.

In the water

But the most incredible thing I have is my boy, Jude Miller Hanks, who is sleeping in his little vibrating chair a stunning, swaddled, sweet smelling bundle.

He’s so tiny! Everybody who told me “you’ve got a big baby in there,” you were wrong. I had a lot of amniotic fluid, but my baby was born 7 pounds, 6 oz. Totally respectable and yet totally average. Hah!!!! It just shows you that NOBODY can predict anything about an unborn baby.

And nobody can predict anything about a birth.

At 10:30 on Wednesday, the 4th of May (one day past my due date), I had my first contraction. Skeet and i were sitting on the couch watching Colbert, and it happened. This time, there was no confusion about what it was. I had just taken a really long, relaxing bath, and actually felt great. I felt really peaceful after posting my last blog that evening.

Then, ten minutes later, another one. Then another 10 minutes and another one. I wasn’t sure yet if it was labor or just a practice, but they were regular. We texted our doula and our midwife. Our doula wrote back and told us to keep her posted.

After an hour, they were already coming closer, one at 6, then the next at 5…I was so surprised that it came on so quickly. I tried to lay down and relax in bed. Hah:) I needed to get up and move, and that’s when they really started to gain strength. We decided to get our doula there, and bless her, she was there in what I am guessing is 30 minutes. I’m not sure because something odd happened to me during labor–that time suddenly had no continuous flow to it. It seemed to stand still or maybe it seemed to race. Not in a bad way, but it was amazing. I’d look at the clock and see that two hours had passed and I thought it had been 10 minutes. When I was waiting for those contractions (at that point, I really anticipated them) there just was no time. The only time, of course, that time dragged was during really strong ones.

Contraction-this is a woman in labor

My memory of a lot of specific details is fuzzy. Some things I remember with absolute clarity. My doula called the midwife in pretty quickly, because she assessed that i was really moving along, and I WAS. I was doing it. The tub was filled, the candles were lit, the birthin’ Jamz were on, and I was doing it.

Every woman had a hard time describing the pain of labor. And yes, I finally am in the club. It hurts. I have videos of the home labor. I can’t believe how quiet I sound during the contractions, because in my head, I’m not going to lie, sometimes I was screaming. When I hear my “ahhhhhhhhs’ and “oooooooooooos” and “mmmmmmmms” they sound controlled, which really surprised me. And I knew I was doing it.

Contraction-loving mom standing by

There seems to be so much to tell about. I did go away. The place I was hoping to find was found. And yes, it felt just as profound, sacred, and deep as I wanted it to be. I was involved in the struggle and beauty of a woman giving birth, and I have NEVER felt more womanly. I remember staring into the water in my tub, staring at the candles on the dresser, closing my eyes (not as good-hurts worse) and staring into the eyes of my amazing husband. And I feel like I’ve never seen a person as closely, as honestly, and and nakedly as I watched him watch my struggle to give birth to our son. One moment out of a thousand that felt incredibly beautiful was when we moved out of the tub into the living room onto the birthing ball. I held onto his neck and rocked back and forth through contractions with him. Amazing. If any bonds were left in my heart that needed to be cemented, they were, at that moment, cemented forever.

On the birthing ball, trying to get my pelvis opened up

And I’d stall, and I’d start, I’d stall, and I’d start. They told me to get out and squat, and I did. They told me to get out and stretch squat my legs on the stairs, and I did. They told me to lay on my side in bed, and I did. They told me to stand up, sit down, roll over, play dead, fetch, and juggle the cats. I freaking did. And when they checked me about 22 hours later, I was ONLY 5 cm, and had passed meconium. A call by my midwife was made to transport me to the hospital, and once again, I did. I did everything that was asked. I just rolled with it. I had no other choice.

Contraction, with Debbie, our loving midwife.

So we all piled into the cars and drove to Research Hospital. Having contractions in a car after having them in the comfort of your own home is…less comfortable. And I had them in the parking lot, and at the front door of the E.R. and at the admissions desk. 23 hours…

So, we managed to get a conservative doctor who wasn’t C-section happy, thanks to my midwife’s efforts, and we went into the labor room. And in fact, I later found out that Dr. Schwartz is a decent guy, and even with his aloof doctor demeanor, there was something about him that I loved. Maybe it was his weird biker mustache.

So we continued to labor, and they gave me Pitocin. And that is when, with every bit of grief that could exist in my heart, I knew I wasn’t going to last. I lasted through all those hours, and the Pitocin was what undid me. Maybe I could have managed it if I hadn’t been so tired, but they made everything so much more INSANELY intense that I threw in the towel. I breathed through several contractions, and after each one, begged, literally BEGGED, my midwife and doula to call the doctor in to get me an epidural. Not what I expected. Not what I’d planned. I could have done it…I could have done it…without that. I could have done it if it had taken 8 hours, or 12, or 15, or even if he had come out at 20 hours. I was bawling my eyes out, because at that moment I was exhausted, in intense pain from the Pitocin, and from the fact that EVERYTHING about my birth plan had changed in a minute. Eff.He had tried so hard to push through my pelvis, and apparently my cervix was really swollen from the prolonged labor. When the doc broke my amniotic sac to get the labor moving, meconium poured out. Baby Jude was a mess in there, He was exhausted too.

This is where I departed ways with the philosophy I had set my mind to during my pregnancy, unfortunately. I was begging for an epidural. After trying 5 or so times to get through to my support team, i did what anybody would do who feels like they are losing their mind from pain. I screamed for my mom. My husband said with fear, relief, and firmness “WE’RE DONE.” And finally, finally, everybody backed off and let the nurse know I wanted an Epidural.

The relief was amazing, as anyone who has had one will tell you. However, there was one place that it didn’t get too, so I still labored in part of my back for the duration of the labor, which was an additional 21 some hours. Finally, the doctor called it and said I needed a section. And I got one.

I wasn’t scared until they rolled me in there. A section was everything I wanted to avoid, and everything I feared. How had this labor progressed in such trainwreck fashion to this point? So many things were going through my mind. Feelings of grief, failure, relief, desire to see the baby, fear, and the deepest exhaustion I’d ever felt all ran in there together. And again, Skeet saved me, and during the section, he stood there looking in my eyes, and we reclaimed my labor. He “hmmmm’ed” and “oooooed” with me the whole way through, and when at last Jude was out, he was able to go over to the resuscitation table (baby was such a mess his first APGAR score was a 4) to watch over him. When I heard his first little “a-a-ah-a” I died. My baby. Never again will there be a moment so complete. The intensity of that moment will live with, and haunt me, forever. My baby. He was real. And the rush of love and joy and bonding I felt when I heard him was no lie, it wasn’t fake. C-section bonding can occur too. I know it’s not the perfect way, but it did happen, and when I saw my little man for the first time, there was no world anymore. I wasn’t strapped to a table with my guts sliced open. I didn’t have a catheter and a uterine monitor shoved up inside me. I was floating in heaven and he was there with me, looking at me with the glazed and beautiful baby wonder I had been dying to see.

Thoughts.

1.. I want to try for a VBAC. But I won’t do it at home with a midwife. Home birth midwives, I have discovered, do not run the ship the way I want it run. The assistant midwife was brilliant, the doula was brilliant. But it wasn’t enough security for me, I guess.
2. If/when we have another child, I would like to do it in a hospital that has a midwife program.
3. Doctors aren’t evil, and neither are nurses. Neither are hospitals. There are doctors out there that aren’t C-section happy. Mine let me labor on forever, because he knew that was my wish. The nurses on staff at Research Hospital in the Women’s Center were incredible at their jobs, caring, funny, helpful, and compassionate. I had a lactation consultant every single day, and every single nurse helped me breastfeed. They. Were. Amazing.
4. I am NOT SORRY for my labor at home. It was intense, it took me to the edge, it gave me strength, it built me up, it made me feel cherished and loved and cared for by the people that were there. I will never regret it. If anyone is considering a home birth, I wouldn’t tell them not to. I also would not encourage anyone to try it either. I think you have to find home birth on your own, make it a personal journey, and dedicate every bit of your heart and soul to it during your pregnancy. If that’s not your thing, and you’d rather just have your baby, they by all means, go to the hospital. It’s wrong to demean a woman for either choice. My experience ended up being out of my hands because the labor did not go well. My uterus tired out. I stalled, My baby was sideways. My cervix didn’t dilate. However, I loved the labor. I’m not lying. Yes, it hurt. But it was beautiful and awe inspiring and I will never forget it. I worked my ass off for it, until I physically couldn’t push myself another step. I’ll never stop being proud. When I look at the pictures, I see a Woman. Not just a female, but a luscious, strong, laboring woman.
5. I am not sorry I got an epidural. And I am sorry. My child and I are bonded, and I am breastfeeding. The Pitocin was brutal but necessary, because my kid was not coming out without help.
6. Birth IS dramatic. Whether you labored at home peacefully or whether you struggled for hours. Birth and death are the most dramatic things we can possibly experience. NOTHING will ever make me feel as alive as that.

The section was out of my hands. My birth plan and everything I anticipated was thrown to the winds, almost as if God tore up my birth plan, laughed, and threw it in front of a large oscillating fan. Everyone will tell you having a child is humbling, and my Jude decided to humble me right from the start. He has continued to do so for the past week. His gorgeous face is the ruler of my universe. He is my teacher and my boss. All I have to do is submit to his lessons and I will become a better, more humble, more loving, more forgiving and more accepting person.

All is well.
Pax,
Alison Mizerski-Hanks

40 weeks.

I thought I’d be a lot, Lot, LOT more impatient at this point. Today, I’m not. I’m just ready.

But today, I’ve been given a big gift. I feel patient.

The due date was yesterday. But what is a due date? It doesn’t mean anything. And now that it’s gone, I’m not focused on it.

Today, I realized that all the silliness that people toss around when you are waiting for the biggest moment of your life is irrelevant. I’m going to have a baby, and it is guaranteed to be sometime in the next two weeks. And as much as people will say “Oh my god, you’re still pregnant?!?!” or “when is that kid coming out of you?!?!” you learn once again to smile to yourself, or rant privately to your husband, or call a girlfriend and comiserate, but once again, you learn to be patient not only with your own body, but with those well-meaning people around you who are just very excited for you.

So today I planted some tomatoes, stocked up the freezer (again, I optimistically did this at 38 weeks), and am getting ready to do some bread baking so I can freeze loaves for later. And it’s really okay. I’m not going to try any more of the natural remedies that are supposed to start labor (pineapple, pressure points, eggplant, hot spicy foods, etc…). He’s going to come when he’s ready, and if that means he’s not coming for 2 more weeks, I am prepared to accept that.

My friend Lisa sent me a great quote.

“Adopt the pace of nature…her secret is patience.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our entire philosophy through this pregnancy is accepting what nature has to give, which is plenty. I didn’t want intervention in this pregnancy. I haven’t even been getting my cervix checked for dilation. What does it matter? It’s either dilating right now or it’s not, but if it’s not, what am I going to do? Nothing, because I’m not forcing it to happen. I thought maybe I’d want it checked to encourage me, but there have been plenty of other signs to encourage me without having somebody get up in my business for no reason. I told myself from the beginning that my body knew best, and Ina May Gaskin says it well-”Your body is NOT a lemon.” My body is going to do what it needs to do when the time comes, whether that’s today or two weeks from today. Just because it’s not happening now does not mean I’m failing.

There is a beautiful book written by Jon Krakauer called “Into The Wild.” There is also a wonderful movie version of the book. It’s the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man who decided to leave everything he knew behind, disappear into the Alaskan wilderness, and live and survive alone. I’ve thought of him so many times during this pregnancy. Strange correlation, I guess, as he ended up dying, but there’s meaning in his story to me, and it calls to mind the great leap a woman takes into the unknown void when she decided to birth a child at home. There is nothing to fall back on but yourself. You are with people, but essentially, this journey takes me to a place where I will be alone, very alone, and deeper into myself than I have ever been. And I understand why McCandless wanted to go far into the wilderness, because that’s what I’ve wanted all along for myself. How many times on this earth, as modern human beings that are plugged into way too many devices, look into ourselves and choose to take this leap inside our mind, our body, and our soul.

If you could look up into the sky, see something endless and promising, scary, dark, and full of freedom…if you could take a leap off of a cliff, knowing that, like a trust exercise, your husband, your midwife, your mom, and your doula were all there to catch you safely and pull you in…wouldn’t you want to jump? Wouldn’t you want to see what was there in the dark that scared you, knowing that you could conquer it and come through to the other side?

It’s looking into that dark sky that feels like freedom. Who doesn’t love to feel tiny when they are next to the ocean or staring at the stars?

I would never want to miss that opportunity.

38 weeks-so so close…

I’m ready to do this. When everybody tells you the 9th month of pregnancy is uncomfortable, they aren’t lying.

I’ve tried to get through most of this without whining or getting too upset about aches and pains, and sometimes I’ve failed, but I am READY TO GO INTO LABOR.

Once again, nature makes sense. My body is so uncomfortable, I am welcoming any tiny sign of labor instead of fearing it.

We had a home visit from our midwife a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting. I thought she’d come in and get down to business, but instead she walked into our kitchen and started snacking on some pretzels we had out and asking us about all of our pictures and stuff on the walls. It was so casual and yet so smart. I’m pretty sure that she was getting comfortable with us, not just being polite. She seemed to have an ulterior motive- that of learning about the people who she was about to assist on the most intimate journey of their lives. She was brilliant at it. She was so nonchalant about all of her questions that I didn’t even realize until a few days later that that’s exactly what she’d been doing. She walked through the house and asked where we wanted our birth pool. I said “living room” and she immediately vetoed it, looked at a few other of our rooms, and finally suggested our baby room, due to it’s relative privacy and easy access to the bathroom. Done. We’re having our baby in our baby room. How great is that? I’m thinking that looking at his tiny tiny little things will be some good motivation.

My cat Sophie has gotten very affectionate and needy lately. I think she knows. She clings to us quite a bit…

I had a maternity photo shoot today with a friend. She hasn’t done maternity shots before and offered to do them for free in order to build up that part of her business. I had put the idea away weeks ago, when I was still in a “I feel fat and hideous” mood, but she encouraged me back into it a few days ago, and I went along with it. I’m glad I did. We hit some unique spots in Kansas City, including a random industrial area that actually had some very cool looking backdrops for photos. At one point I tried to jump up onto a ledge, which was a fairly humbling and hilarious experience. I can barely get myself into my own bed, let alone up onto a ledge, but kudos to me for momentarily forgetting my limitations…

Waiting waiting waiting…when will my body give me another sign?! I’m over the painless Braxton-Hicks stuff. I want something that’s going to take my breath away.

I can do anything

I just finished up my last gig before taking my own “maternity leave.” It was a tough one. Not because of the people-they were amazing. I worked with some of the nicest, most supportive people on this show than I have at almost any other time in my career. The cast and crew of Cabaret was truly fantastic. I got to expand more of my theatre horizons in Kansas City, and working at the Rep again after a 9 year hiatus was really thrilling. I always loved working there when I lived here long ago, and I feel so blessed that just a few short months after moving here, I got to return.

My wigs, my hairstyling, and my awesome Cabaret girls...

This gig had the potential to make my self esteem plummet. The girls in the show were TINY. And they wore adorable little pinup girl costumes for all of their numbers. They were all gorgeous and fit, and yes, I envied the way they looked when they were walking around in their garter belts and high heels and thigh-high stockings. But the most wonderful thing about them is that not only were they the nicest group of ladies I have ever worked with, they were nice to me specifically about how cute they thought I looked pregnant. Every day somebody would come in and say something sweet, and perhaps undeserved, about how they thought I looked good, they liked my makeup, they liked my bump, they liked my boots, etc…and that was a blessing as well. Those pretty girls bolstered my esteem and confidence a TON, and they just did it with kind words about my appearance. Under normal circumstances where I was NOT pregnant, I think I would have been much more envious of their protruding collar bones. Since that is unattainable for me at the moment, I was able to let go and not be so self aware of the bigness to smallness ratio in the wig room. Even when my belly bumped into them as I was putting their wig on…

The best thing I’ve taken away from the last several months is confidence in myself-not just learning to develop a thick skin when somebody says something ignorant or rude, but about my ability to handle whatever is going on at the moment. I remember when I first got pregnant, I knew I still had commitments and contracts that required me to travel out of town. I was terrified, and wondered how I was going to pull off that first one in Cleveland when I was only 7 weeks along. At that point, pregnancy was so new, and I had no idea how I was going to negotiate long work days and morning sickness while still putting up with the irritation and pressures of working in Opera. Before I had to leave, I would lay awake at night in complete misery, thinking that I was making a huge mistake. And then I went, and I did it, and still busted my butt as hard as I ever have and I still made it. I was nauseous and cranky and at times psychopathic, but I did it.

There have been more hurdles just like that one, and each time I was scared out of my mind, would cry to my husband about it before bed, and then suck it up and get it done. This most recent one was hard, but only because I’m heavier-it is HARD to carry 30 extra pounds around at work, up flights of stairs, and backstage, AND because I’m so tired. After my changes were done in the first act, I would haul to the couch in the wardrobe head’s office and sleep. The tech rehearsals were 12 hour days, and once the run started, we often had two shows in one day. I’m not saying I have some sort of amazing ability that nobody else has, I’m just saying that I’m pleased, and I surprised myself-we can always do way more than we ever think is possible, simply by putting our heads down and doing it. This really valuable lesson is going to keep me inspired in the next few weeks while I wait for Baby Hanks. Last night before bed, my new worry was “What if I go late? I don’t know if I can stand it.” My husband just said “You know you can do it.”

"You can do it"

I enjoyed keeping in mind the women like my grandmother and great grandmothers in Nebraska who raised huge families, ran big households, and continued on in their work. I keep in mind an image of a woman working out in the garden or a field or scrubbing the kitchen floor or cooking a meal for 12-14 children (no kidding, my great grandmothers did) who went into labor, had the baby at home, and probably got up as soon as she was physically able to stand and started taking care of everybody around her again.

I bet she's washing diapers...

Wow. Most of us modern women have nothing to gripe about. If we have a great husband by our side who will rub our sore feet or backs, listen to us cry, read the pregnancy books along with us, and tell us we’re doing an amazing job, we’re so lucky. I’m trying to imagine any of my great grandfathers doing that, and it’s kind of laughable. Hm, maybe they did and just didn’t tell anybody…Or they went out and chopped wood or killed some livestock to regain their manly sense of the world.

However these ladies did it, I’d like to thank them for the inspiration-if they could do all that, I can be pampered and take naps and go to a fairly easy job and try not to complain. It’s genetic:)

The Top Ten

The following compilations are my top ten do’s and don’ts to say to your pregnant friends and family. If anyone reading this has been pregnant and would like to contribute to the list, please do. Let’s enlighten everybody.

Okay, so let’s start with positives. These are my top ten things you SHOULD say to a pregnant woman.

Appearance and Lifestyle
1. Pregnancy really agrees with you!
2. You are glowing! And I LOVE your boots!
3. I can tell you’re trying really hard to be healthy! You’re doing everything right!
4. You have so much motivation to exercise while you’re pregnant!
5. Stop feeling guilty!
6. Your maternity clothes are so cute!
7 . I can’t tell you’re pregnant from the front! It looks like a little basketball under your clothes!
8. You work so hard!
9. Put your feet up, take a warm bath, and get a massage!
10. You are the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever seen!

Choices
1. That’s great! I respect your choice!
2. Labor at home was an incredible experience, and you will love it! It will change your life!
3. I can see you’ve really done your homework.
4. Women are just trying to scare you when they say that!
5. That was a smart decision!
6. I’m GLAD you want to use cloth diapers! I’ll help you in any way I can!
7. I’m GLAD you want to breastfeed! I’ll help you in any way I can!
8. How capable you are to keep on working in your 3rd trimester! You can handle anything!
9. Labor? It’s not as bad as some women say!
10. You’re coping so well! You’re a rock star! You are ROCKING THIS PREGNANCY!

Okay, now let’s move on to things NOT to say, EVER, to a pregnant woman. I’ve heard all of them.

1. Are you CRAZY?!?
2. You’re going to hate that decision later.
3. The difference between a dead baby and a live baby is a CPR class. You’d better take one.
4. Your wife’s vagina will never be the same after she gives birth. (Our former landlord, to my husband).
5. Wow. You have a huge baby in there. Huge. Seriously, that kid is going to be huge. That’s a big baby.
6. You’ll change your mind about that. Just wait.
7. You’re going to be sorry if there is an emergency and you have a home birth. My baby was born with (insert disaster here) and would have DIED if we hadn’t been in the hospital.
8. You’re going way too far away from home. My baby was born prematurely when I went out of town.
9. The WORST part of labor was (insert disgusting horror story here).
10.Good Morning Fatty! Don’t worry, you can crash diet after he’s born! (This person has apologized profusely and very sincerely).
11. How old are you? 36? Your skin will never shrink back down at your age.

Thankfully, I am FINALLY learning how to blow them off. Like, in the past week. And some change has come over me, because I am finally able, in this last week, to be able to honestly look at myself and feel a certain sense of prettiness, and to actually love the belly. Not just accept it, but love it.

Why do people say weird things to pregnant women? And women who have had babies are equal offenders in the matter. My husband and I were just talking about this. It seems the women LOVE to share their horror stories, as if it’s their badge of honor. Why can’t having a simple, uncomplicated, safe, and healthy birth be a badge of honor? Why can’t so many women relish the chance to say “My birth went so well-we had no complications and everything was peaceful?” Instead, women love to come up to any random woman on the street that they may see and say “I labored for 36 hours and every moment was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.” Maybe it’s true, but if it is, keep it to yourself and SHUT UP, FOR GOD’S SAKE! BE SUPPORTIVE! Just because your birth was awful doesn’t mean mine will be!!!!

I am reaching a peaceful state of mind again about our upcoming home birth. I’m ready for whatever the moment brings. My midwife keeps using a word that has really resonated with me-surrender. There is only so much I can control when the moment comes. I will know my environment. I will know the 5 people who are there to help me. I will have some tools at hand that I’ve learned to try and cope. Beyond that, the entire effort is a surrender to what my body is going to do, and I cannot control that in any way. I can only let go. Surrender puts you at peace in your heart. Knowing you cannot manipulate a situation to go the way you want is calming. Knowing that all you can do is go with it is actually comforting. This isn’t a test that I’m about to fail for lack of studying. It’s possibly messy and loud and painful, but not scary, not controlled by doctors, and not life threatening. And not controlled by me. What a relief. It’s a big burden lifted, actually. Before, I was taking total responsibility for how things were going to progress. Now, all I have to do is let it progress, and whatever happens, happens.

Baby room painted today. Filled with onesies and diapers and a crib. Car seat ready. Bunny rabbit stuffed animal carefully secured in carseat in an effort to practice. I don’t think I’m supposed to squish baby as much as I squished bunny in order to get him in there-need more work on that. Carseat more challenging than previously thought. Dresser organizers ready to put in dresser. This is coming together.

And just for fun, my top ten favorite foods while pregnant:

1. Cereal
2. Blueberries
3. Yogurt and Granola
4. Cheese and crackers
5. Steak
6. Peanut butter
7. Apples
8. Potatoes
9. Nutella on chocolate graham crackers
10. Peanut M&Ms

Hug your pregnant friends today and tell them they are beautiful. If you keep saying it, they will start to believe it. It takes dozens of good comments and positive attitudes to make a pregnant woman feel secure and happy, and JUST ONE comment to bring everything crashing down to the ground and shake her reedy confidence. So everyone, both men AND WOMEN, please choose your wisdom carefully when sharing it with a woman who is nervous and pregnant for the first time-she’s freaking out way more than she lets on. And if you are a woman stupid enough to have said “Your skin will never shrink back down at your age” go directly to where she’s registered and buy her the most expensive item on the list, and take a solemn vow to be more diplomatic in the future:)

Pre-Birth Tension

We finished up our HypnoBirthing class tonight.

It seems weird. It seems like I will never get enough class time in to teach me everything I need to know about what is about to happen. As soon as I had a moment of awareness about it, an “Oh, you’re on your own now” thought starting going through my mind, and I came home and grabbed my Sheila Kitzinger book on pregnancy for the 50th time and started reading it all over again, for the 50th time. I had a moment of “I still don’t know a freaking thing about what I’m doing” and started studying like a college student cramming for a 100 level Geology lab that I hadn’t paid attention in all semester that counted for 75% of my grade. I suddenly feel like pregnancy is the 7:30am that I decided to skip once a week. You remember that vaguely guilty feeling you’d get when you were taking a test that you KNEW would have been easier if you’d just opened the book at least ONCE in the semester? Your mind starts drifting to all the wasted moments you could have spent cramming some extra information in. Like the night I watched a two hour documentary on Transsexuals. Now I’m thinking “HOW DID THAT HELP ME?!?! WHY WASN’T I PRACTICING MY BIRTHING POSITIONS INSTEAD OF WATCHING THIS DUDE LEARN HOW TO APPLY EYESHADOW?!?!?!?!”

I think pregnancy, for the first timer, is such a jump into the unknown that it’s easy to second guess yourself and wonder if you’re time could have been better spent. And with 6 weeks left and a job that is keeping me insanely busy, an upcoming trip or two out of town, and a baby room that still isn’t even remotely together, I wonder how I have dropped the ball so hard. I feel like most other women are ready at this point. Other women’s baby rooms are painted and have the obnoxious, pastel objects and art dedicated on it’s walls (Baby Hanks is getting a clean, colorful room free of weird decorations that he can’t appreciate and shouldn’t, if he’s going to have any taste in art), and I’m supposed to be going slow, taking leisurely walks, putting my feet up, and not in any way concerned or freaked out that I don’t have 95% of what I supposedly need for this kid. And if somebody says “All you need for this kid is love” I will punch them directly in the face. Not only is that statement sappy, it is useless.

For any woman who never expected to be a mother (and in fact never dreamed of it, never dwelled on it in any way, except perhaps in the intellectually curious sense), until they met a man they wanted to have a baby with, you ladies could probably follow me on this one…as a little girl, I didn’t hope and pray that someday I’d be a wife and a mom and have kids. I’ve been pretty disinterested in children my entire life. The only kid I was ever around was my cousin Drew. And that held true for my adulthood. I didn’t have any girlfriends with children that lived near me. Generally, I’ve thought of babies and children as annoying, seemingly cumbersome, and boring. When a kid tries to engage me in a conversation (even now) I am desperately looking for a way out of talking to them. Sort of like “Ugh. You’re so self-absorbed. Why don’t you ask ME about MY interests? Because frankly, nobody in this room cares about dinosaurs but YOU.” Every time I see a child in the airport or grocery store, I’ve always thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t dragging one (or 6) along behind ME. The whining, the crying, the brattiness…and when I hear people go on and on ad nauseum about their kids, or that one time when their kid was a baby and he (insert underwhelming anecdote here) I just want to tell them they need to find an interesting hobby, and I totally tune out.

So when you’ve always been this way, and then you meet somebody who changes your life and you think, crazily, “I love you! Let’s have a baby!” It must be some sort of insanity. Your brain turns to mush and somehow your biological need to create a life with another person is so strong that reason goes out the window. And in that insane moment when you decide that making a baby is a good idea, a GREAT idea, you’re sacrificing an awful lot to make it happen. And you realize once you’ve started the process that there is no…way…out. It’s happening, and I could stand here and get in the way of myself, which is what I am doing at the present moment, or gracefully go into the wild of parenthood.

I’m not afraid to admit that I’m scared out of my mind tonight. Even when I was lying down earlier reading my book, I thought “why didn’t I just decide to be one of those women who just goes to the hospital and just gets an epidural stabbed into her spine and then baby comes out? Why am I choosing to go unmedicated? Who do I think I am? Wasn’t two adorable cats and one adorable husband enough for me?!?!”

But Baby Hanks is so wanted. I love him. I can’t wait to see him. Some magical part of the biological process that takes over a woman’s body to build a baby must also take over her brain to love a baby…a baby that is kicking her in the ribs and standing on her bladder. I’m glad that somewhere along the line, nature is kind enough to do for me what I could not have rationalized myself into-it’s making me love you, little Hanks, sight unseen, body unheld, baby smell unsmelled, little fingers not touched yet and smooth baby feet not squeezed yet. Any pregnant women who isn’t sure she is going to be a good mom should just examine all the sacrifices she’s already made…a space in her body, better eating habits, foregoing booze, getting sleep, getting prenatal care, trying to avoid stress, and on and on. I’m already being a mom. Even if I’m already convinced that I am not going to be an adequate one, my actions tell me otherwise. If I didn’t love you, little Hanks, I wouldn’t try this hard. I’m sure that there are a million times in his life that the possibility is going to arise that I’m going to be convinced that I made the wrong parenting choice and thus feel like a total failure for not being perfect. When he gets a B, I’m going to be sure it’s because I didn’t work hard enough to instill a love for education in him. When he gets in trouble for fighting at school, I’m going to be sure it’s because his dad and I fell down on the job and didn’t teach him how to solve his problems with moral and ethical courage. When his teeth need braces, I’m going to be sure it’s because I didn’t put enough calcium in my body when I was pregnant. I’m not the type of person to sit back and pat myself on the shoulder and say “well, you did the best you could.” Saying that is for quitters. Nothing is EVER good enough, especially raising a child. And look at what idiots most of us are. Most of us are stumbling blindly around in the dark trying to live a life, and then we get to raise a kid?! How could God give us children? We’re MORONS. And by “we” I mean 98% of the human race.

We’re petty and rude and self-centered and willfully ignorant and cruel. But we want babies. Nature won’t allow us to stop. Deep inside our primitive brain, we’re being told by an unseen force that we need to make life. Why? I don’t know. The world is a screwed up place. But maybe Baby Hanks will make it a better place? Or make this life a better life for somebody just by being around?

Pre-birth tension. Probably common. Once I’ve got that kid in my arms, it’s going to be a love affair to end all love affairs. None of this will matter.

And one thing he definitely needs to know…I have put every cent I earn into savings so he can go to private school some day. Don’t think I won’t be dangling that over his tiny little head every time he turns in a school paper. “Mommy gave up her $90 eye cream for THIS?!?”