I wasn’t sure if this was the right topic to talk about, but I’ve decided to share my experience. Maybe someone can benefit from it, ponder, or at least give it some thought. I’ve been carefully observing women who are pregnant and on the edge of their delivery. Women who were thinking of getting pregnant and who were just talking about it. By the way, I’m not sure if the two latter can even distinguish themselves from one another. However, there is a fine, clear line between two of those types – as the one that talks perceive themselves, and as the type who’s about to get pregnant. Anyway, I’m not going to share that. That’s a different, very deep conversation that I’ll leave for the future. Let’s get back to our discussion.
What I figured out by being pregnant myself, and carefully observing others is that a lot of us live in an “imaginary” world when it comes to pregnancy, let alone delivery.
When a woman becomes pregnant, all of a sudden, she starts experiencing everything that those fancy magazines or sites say. She starts feeling nauseous, cranky, moody, constipated, etc. In short, her pregnancy turns to hell. Delivery? Even worse! By the time a woman reaches her due date, she hates her body because of the inevitable stretch marks. Magazines promise her the worst mood swings, and now she has them. My question is, what if one doesn’t read these magazines and websites?
What would it be like? Don’t you think that our society is poisoned by skinny, beautiful, and perfect girls that we see on every billboard, and in almost every movie, commercial, magazine, and runway? We stop engaging our brain in thinking of those things and asking the right questions, but we are surprised that our lives are so miserable.
It’s all about thinking and asking the right questions.
So here I am, looking around and seeing all these poor women, and looking at myself — I was upbeat, in a perfect mood, functioning well, having no bad expectations and enjoying my pregnancy. Don’t get me wrong – I did have a bad case of stomach aches, but I didn’t look at it that way. I was looking for a solution to make myself more comfortable, but at the same time, I let my problem stay. Sometimes we just need to let things be the way they are. Why do we need to always have things our way? Have you thought about why these things are the way they are? Why is it bothering us that much? Maybe we need to be more accepting of them? What else do we have to accept as well? How about ourselves and our female nature?
When my time to deliver came, there was a brief moment when I got a little emotional as, at that very second, my child was no inside me. It felt like a violation of my rights — and I cried. My husband was upset too, as we grew our baby in my belly. Because I usually look at things from several points of view right away no matter how sad a situation seems at that very moment, I thought that was a good timing and my baby needed to come out and start living real life. With that thought, my husband and I went into a delivery room.
By the way, I need to mention that I did know something about delivery. My husband seemed to have read every possible book and article on it. He was well prepared for everything. I was the opposite, I went into the delivery room with a completely open mind. I told myself whatever happens, it would only be right thing. If there is a pain, I’ll bear with it up until a certain point. If there are complications, my baby would be alright because I listened my body carefully and it didn’t say anything alarming to me. This is a great benefit of listening of your own body: you can talk to it and it will tell you things!
For instance, my body told me I’ll deliver the baby myself, but my doctor kept bringing up a C-section and it made me laugh. I never paid serious attention to the doctor’s warnings. This is another thought for you, girls: don’t listen to anyone. Try to be in touch with your body. Don’t let doctors to stress you out because they will definitely do that — this is their nature.
Coming back to my delivery, I laid on the bed and my contractions started. Yet, I was talking to my husband, watching TV, and we laughed — only as much as I could, but I was doing it! My doctor told me “My God, a lot of women would be cursing everyone in the room and you’re smiling”. This statement made me think again: Why do we curse? What kind of a behavior is that? Does it make us feel better? No! What is it? An excuse to let yourself go? Why? It’s easier to be calm and nice, and your baby inside will not be stressing out too. Also in that state of mind, your delivery is going to be much harder and longer than if you went in with a positive attitude.
My dear girls, we need to throw all advice prior to our pregnancy out of the window.
We need to focus on our bodies. We need to keep in mind how sacred bearing a child inside us is. Who else can do it? Men? No, only we can. It doesn’t make us super special, but it sure does in some sense. We need to let nature help us as all knowledge, especially those about pregnancy, delivery and nursing, is inside of us. We need to just trust it and learn how to listen to ourselves. We wouldn’t need all those delivery classes that are totally worthless, or advice that make us go crazy, scared, and cranky. We need to learn to look at a having a baby as a blessing instead of a painful curse where everyone around us is going to pay a price. The price that’s going to be too high. But by the time you realize it, it would already be too late.
