This time last year, I was waiting to go into labour. Toe-tapping, clock-watching, red-raspberry-leaf-tea-tea-slurping WAITING.
My due date was November 7th. I’d been ready since, oh, about October 7th. I was done with being pregnant. Over it. Finito. I was huge – having gained over 90 freaking pounds – and tired and pretty much entirely fed up with the whole business. It was time for the WonderBaby come on out.
But she didn’t. Husband and I spent the day of November 7th last year pacing around Riverdale Farm, trying to walk the baby out. Then we went to Little India to try to curry the baby out. Then we went home and I tried to coax baby out with litres of red raspberry leaf tea. And, yes, we tried to bounce baby out by doing the same thing that got us – ME – into this mess in the first place.
Nothing worked. She. Would. Not. Come. Out. Not that day, not the next, not the day after that, nor the day after that, and so on. She clung on, tenaciously, to the comfort of her cushy cocoon and steadfastly refused to budge.
And I went slowly insane. Any reservations that I had about labour and delivery and all the difficult/painful/icky stuff was pushed the very back of my psyche and all of my energy became focussed on one thing: GET THIS BABY OUT.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because it now seems so very long ago and so very far away. At the time, my desire to get beyond the pregnancy was all-consuming, but now it’s nearly one year later and I’ve almost entirely forgotten what it felt like to be enormously pregnant (and don’t even get me started on forgetting what it felt like to give birth, and to wrangle a newborn. I’ve blocked these things from my memory.)
Still, I feel a little something of the excitement of the final stages of pregnancy every time that I go to check on one of my very very very pregnant friends (to be distinguished from my very pregnant friends) and find that they are still toting the giant belly. My friend MegaMom – who is an honourary Canadian mama-blogger – has been pregnant, it seems, for years. She was sporting a prominent bump when I met her this summer at BlogHer, and she is, as of two days ago, STILL PREGNANT.
Urban Mummy, on the other hand… when I went to check on her, I discovered, to my very great excitement (and, um, shame) that she was no longer pregnant – she had already given birth, and I was two weeks late to congratulate her. A handful of days went by – a moment, in blogosphere time – and I missed it.
And that just about sums up the whole thing, the whole birth/baby/life-changing thing, doesn’t it? One minute you’re pregnant; the next minute, you’re not. One minute, bump; the next minute, baby. Obviously, the effort that is involved in getting to the moment of baby is tremendous, but still – it feels, once it’s happened, that it’s all happened in an instant. You wait and you wait and you wait and then all of sudden, the waiting is over. Your life has changed, you have changed, everything has changed – and it suddenly feels, improbably, that if you had blinked, you might have missed it, that moment.
It’s the greatest moment. Go offer Urban Mummy congratulations. And while you’re out there visiting, maybe offer MegaMom some good recipes for curry and Castor Oil.
Just yesterday I was walking the park and saw two women with newborns: one was 2.5 weeks and one was 4 weeks. And they were so tiny, all nestled in their strollers and even though I was there only 9 months ago, I wondered, how do they handle them without breaking them? They’re so tiny and wobbly and fragile. But it never actually felt like that with mine.
Ahhh…birth stories! I cain’t never get enuf! I ESPECIALLY love to hear of wonderful midwife-attended homebirths! LOVE! Midwives rock!!! I had both my babes drug-free in hospital attended by midwives, but would have preferred to birth at home. And what a wonderful expression, that your body doesn’t tend to make a baby you can’t handle. I’ve got a little slip of a friend (seriously, she is just 5′ and not even 100 lbs and buys her OWN clothes at GAP kids…) and she gave birth to a 9-pounder, drug-free, at home, attended by midwives. BEAUTIFUL.
Ahhh…birth…the miracle. It’s almost – ALMOST – enough to make me want to get preggo with #3. I said ALMOST!
Hey Catherine!! THanks for the shout out!! No worries about being late…Baby will be 1 month old tomorrow, and It’s flown by in a blink of an eye!!
Didn’t need to walk out this one, but with my first, I remember walking, on Christmas eve, at a local shopping mall (Yonge Eglinton Centre for the Torontonians). It’s a small place, and I was doing circles through the Dominion. In old pyjamas and my husband’s sweatshirt. It was very obvious what I was doing!!
As for this one, yes, he was born at home, and yes, he was over 9 pounds. I don’t know how I did it, but it was wonderful. And in the words of my midwife, generally women don’t grow babies that they can’t handle! I’m a big girl, and I grow big babies!! (number 1 was 8 pounds 7 oz)
my first born was poky by only one day.was in sauna day before i had him.my daughters all early 8 days 3.5 weeks and 7.5 weeks.i drank raspberry leaf tea too.helps ease labour.babies come when they are ready too.not much care whether we are or not.did lots of squatting with number two.think it helped a bit.so i would try squatting,sauna,lots of sex cant hurt.but mostly its a lesson in patience to wait for babe to come
oh..i am so familiar with that feeling…both my girls were late (the boy, however, was 3 weeks early…) i tried everything…red raspberry leaf tea, walking, exercising, sex, sex, sex, nothing, nothing, nothing.
willfull children, those two.
🙂
Had my babes at home. Very civilized the second time around especially. After 5 hours of labour she was born at around 9pm, had Champagne and pizza and I was sound asleep, babe in arms, by midnight.
As for the Castor Oil…DON’T DO IT!!!! I tried it with my first and other than really disgusting burps and a constant need to poo it didn’t make a damn bit of difference in getting the baby out!
Good for her!
Great post. The blink of an eye, is all it takes to discover a whole new perspective.
AT HOME? 9+ lbs?
My hat is off to her.
And, Urban Mummy gave birth AT HOME! To a 9+ pound baby! Unbelievable! She lives near me, and I’m still trying to get my little gifty over there…. 🙂 Great post, as usual, Catherine! 🙂