The Daily Chai Goes Back in Time

An excerpt from my pregnancy blog 2005-10-21  (17 weeks)

I feel like I've been neglecting my journal since I haven't written in over a week, but nothing much has been happening. I don't think what  I was feeling last week was the baby moving,  because I haven't felt more movement or stronger movements since then. Everyone keeps telling my pregnancy will be really real to me once I start feeling the baby move and that it feels so cool, so I'm getting impatient, waiting for this next step! In true drama queen fashion to which I'm sure you've all become accustomed, I almost started to cry on my way to work today because I started thinking about the birth and how much it's going to hurt and how hard it will be and how I'll never be able to do it. It's so stupid, I know, all women fear labour and almost all women make it through somehow. I know I should be preparing for the birth by educating myself, but I can't bring myself to think about it. I wish I could just go to sleep pregnant and wake up with a baby! Worse yet is when you voice your fears and everyone says, "Oh, it isn't that bad." Uh, yes it will be!!! My most favourite thing in the world to date is when they start ‘entertaining’ me with stories of their labours or their friends’ labours. I should probably say HORROR STORIES. Why do women do that? I mean, this is my first baby. I have no memories or anything personal to go on. I’ve led a fairly charmed life, the last time I broke a bone, I was 11 and it was a minor hair-line fracture of the wrist. But these WOMEN. Oh. My. God. Here’s an example of the scariest-assed thing I have ever heard. My friend, who shall remain nameless, but she knows who she is, said that her niece was in labour for 48 hours. Then she pushed for four hours and when the baby finally started to come the woman had to have an episiotomy to avoid tearing. The doctor made a cut three inches long from which said woman has never really recovered because they didn’t stitch her up right. 48 hour labour? Episiotomy? Stitching? What the fuckity fuck? Why do people even HAVE children? Oh, but they say it’s all worth it when you finally hold that newborn baby in your arms for the first time. Whatever. I’ll believe that when it happens. Oh and here’s another one: This one involves the umbilical cord being tied around the baby’s neck. Mother in extreme pain and baby in mortal danger. Good times, good times. AND THEN, when I say, “Well, I’m really worried about the pain and I’m having a epidural,” I get in TROUBLE because some people think epidurals are bad for the baby. Like, when did my body and my baby become anyone’s business? I’ll handle labour exactly the way I want to, thank you very much. I don’t roll my eyes when people proudly tell me their ridiculous birthing plans to relax with massage during labour pain. Again, I say, WHATEVER. You do it your way, I’m very happy with my way! I have a lot of weird dreams about the baby. Last night I had another dream, but it was more normal. I dreamt that we had a boy and we named him Connor. I woke up feeling that, of course, this was a prophetic dream and that it will come true. That it is fate. I'm starting to wonder if I always have these weird thoughts or if it's because I'm pregnant. I don't remember what it's like not be pregnant. I honestly cannot remember what I felt and what I thought about when I was not incubating a fetus. It’s like going to a party sober and getting so shitfaced drunk that later in the evening, if you can even form coherent thought, you wonder what it’s like to be sober and in fact, even when you think REALLY HARD, you can’t comprehend ever having been sober and you’re pretty sure that you started life drunk as billygoats and have experienced your entire life drunk. Being pregnant is basically the same. Yesterday I went to pick up lunch for everyone at work (my boss paid because it's his birthday) and I saw a teeny-tiny pink baby with her father. I said, "That looks like a very new baby!" and he said she had just been born on Monday! She looked so sweet and small and, unbelievably, I almost started to cry right then and there because I felt so overwhelmed with emotion at the thought of my baby being out and about picking up lunch one day.  My mom is right, pregnant women are crazy!