Why Can't We Talk About the Good Things?
I've been having thoughts lately. Lots of thoughts. And I'm not sure exactly where or how is the appropriate place to share them. But they continue to bubble up and so I think I really do need to share them somewhere. And, hey, I have a blog! So here we go.
Pregnancy and motherhood isn't something I spent a lot of time thinking about before it happened. With most things in life, I tend to live in the moment, and whatever will be will be. However, I don't think a girl can go through life surrounded by so many women constantly having babies and not form some expectations on the subject. Based on everything I've seen and heard, I've always assumed it would be hard. Really hard.
With pregnancy, I assumed I'd be ill all the time, be totally uncomfortable in my own skin, blow up like a balloon, and have terrible sagging skin, stretch marks, and an extra 20 pounds (at least) to show for it. None of this really happened. I didn't get too ill, my belly was smaller than average, and I didn't gain weight anywhere else. So, I'm thinking, ok. I had the easy pregnancy, but the birth is going to be rough.
Well, I never even went into labor. I was scheduled to be induced, but when we arrived at the hospital that day, I was told the baby's heart rate was too low, that he was in distress, and the process of labor would be too difficult and dangerous for him. I didn't have a long, difficult labor. I was put straight into a gown, and into an OR, and the baby delivered via c-section before I even had time to wrap my head around what was happening. Recovery was not fun, but the worst of it didn't last too long, and I am so grateful I had my mom to help during that time.
Ok, so I lucked out on pregnancy and birth. But the actual baby. That's got to be the hard part, right? No sleep, pooping, vomiting, fussing over who knows what. All that is just inevitable, right? WRONG! Axel has been a great sleeper from the very beginning! He is already sleeping 6-7 hours straight a night. He only fusses when he's hungry. He very very rarely spits up at all. We use his many burp cloths more like dinner napkins.
So what is going on here? Do I really have the easiest baby to ever exist? I doubt it. Here's what I think the problem is: with all the hard times some women go through with their babies, I feel bad ever saying anything positive about mine. I don't want to come off like I'm bragging. I don't want to make someone who is truly having a hard time with things feel worse than they already do. So, I don't announce how easy my son is to take care of. But maybe there's a problem with that.
I recently discovered a podcast called The Longest Shortest Time (thanks for recommending, Aunt Terri!). I've been skimming through the episodes, and I found and listened to one that was intended to be the beginning of a "What to Expect When You're Expecting" series. The host of the podcast interviewed a friend who was in the last month of her pregnancy. She talked to her about her expectations and fears for birth and babyhood.
I finished the episode and was anxious to hear the next installment, when we were to check in and see if her expectations were accurate. I skimmed through the episodes and couldn't find the next one anywhere. I finally returned to the page of the episode, and found this note at the bottom: "We wound up stopping this series with this episode," and there was a link to a further explanation of why the series stopped:
I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Joanne. Thing is, even with all of Joanne’s self described neuroses, everything was going pretty smoothly. She’d had a c-section—something she wasn’t too psyched about—but she wasn’t hung up on it, either. Gus was breastfeeding well; he was sleeping as well as could be expected, as was Joanne; Gus’s dad could be around a lot to help out. Joanne was even pleased with how quickly she was losing her baby weight!
This perfectly describes my own birth and baby story! But apparently, the podcast was looking for a little more drama. So, we don't get to explore what it's like for a woman to have an easy baby. They no doubt wanted to hear from some woman who had a harrowing birth experience, who hadn't slept in 2 weeks, who's baby had reflux, and who couldn't latch to breastfeed. Why!? Why must we scare all the childless people and expectant parents into thinking this is the norm? It's not!
So, I'm still not sure if I should start bragging about my easy baby. But I do think there might be a problem here. I wish we could talk about the positives, the good stories. So, I'm doing it here on my slightly more protected blog. Maybe I can show one or two people that having a baby doesn't have to be a life ending, harrowing experience.