I had every intention of having a natural birth until the contractions got to be closer and stronger and I realized there was no way I'd be able to relax through them, which scared me knowing that it may slow down my progression. So I got the epidural, and let me just say...I am now in full support of the epidural. All you women who had a natural child birth...you are AMAZING. Labor is out of this world. As my doctor perfectly put it, "You can really feel humanity's sin."
At the beginning of a contraction I'd be telling myself I could do it and to just breathe and by the end of the contraction I was spewing out words that I don't even remember thinking and holding onto my husband so hard just hoping that the pain would go away. You enter into a zone that you've never been in before.
Women do not get enough credit through pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum. Creating a baby, housing a baby, changing your body to deliver the baby, then pushing a baby the size of a pumpkin out of a place on your body that is really just not big enough, and then having to recover from 9 months of changes while taking care of your baby and feeding them from your body every 2-3 hours, which hurts for a week or so.
From my experience, the world has really dumbed down pregnancy, child birth, and recovery. And I fully admit I was totally naive until I went through it. It simply is not talked about enough.
This is not meant to scare anyone but the reality is that postpartum is real and raw and painful...but on the other hand it's beautiful and breathtaking.
A new mom is not just tired because her baby is waking up in the middle of the night to feed. She is tired because her body is recovering from 9 months of her organs being shifted around and healing from her bottom region trying to go back to the way it was. Healing requires rest. Isaiah was directly on my bladder for the majority of my pregnancy, which meant I was literally going to the bathroom 6 times in the middle of the night. Now Isaiah only gets up about 2 times in the middle of the night so you would think that would be better than 6 times...yet I'm still exhausted. Why? Because my body is still healing.
Going to the bathroom is not only not the same, it's painful. Now that I say that can you imagine why?
Walking up the stairs was a very slow process and even walking around was uncomfortable. Not only does my bottom hurt but my back and my ribs and my abdomen all are sore. Pushing a baby out is serious work. Don't believe me? Try doing it yourself.
On top of physical pain, there's the pain of missing your baby being in your belly. I was told I would miss my belly but never believed it as I just viewed it as being uncomfortable and thought that I'd be happier with him in my arms. I was definitely wrong. Once I met Isaiah, cliche as it is...my world literally shifted. And now that I know him, I now realize that he was the one in my belly and the one that I was laying with in the morning as he was rolling around and kicking me. I miss him being there at all times to the point of tears.
Speaking of tears, sometimes I just cry. I cry because I love him so much, I cry because I'm scared for him, I cry because I miss my husband when he's at work. I just cry. The world would love to tell me that I'm being crazy, but I know this is totally normal. My hormones are raging right now and with everything I've gone through it is enough reason to have a good cry.
I am the first of all my friends to have a baby and go through this and that makes it difficult. But it's good so I can sort through all of my emotions and figure everything out without trying to run and escape them. It's also difficult because I know once you reach of certain point of your children's lives you tend to forget a lot of things that happened after you gave birth to them. I am only 1.5 weeks postpartum which means everything is very real and open right now. I still haven't forgotten about the pain of labor or the pain after labor because I am still going through it. However, when I think back to my labor, it was so beautiful I'd do it over and over again to get to have my baby in my arms.
There are so many emotions that overcome me when I think about these past couple weeks, and they are all okay. Don't let anyone tell you any different.
God created women knowing that they could endure child birth. God created women to be strong yet loving beings. Don't forget that.
Oh, Isaiah, how you are loved.
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