Labor

Caroline 11/5/19

They handed me this tiny squealing monster (newborns are so gooey). What I had just done was the most difficult thing I had ever done. I was weeping and laughing and covered in sweat. It was a thing done in blood and pain and filth and I had no idea I was so fucking strong. I labored so hard for this human. 

My body was against me from the start. I was already a high risk pregnancy because of my bipolar. I had high blood sugar and my blood pressure was an issue. I had to go off of my medications and my brain fought me so hard. It told me so many awful things about me. About what would happen and how I would be lacking. The depression and anxiety was so heavy I thought I would be crushed under the weight. I labored so long for this human. 

The mental and emotional work had been so intense that the physical pain was a relief. I felt a burst of energy like a runner seeing the finish line. I have always had a complicated relationship with pain. But when the pain of physical labor came, I was able to focus on my body instead of the horror of my internal monologue, to let ancient rhythms start an inevitable action. 

I was finally able to focus on the motion inside me. I could feel every millimeter of progress. I could feel my body shifting and opening. I could feel the change coming in every heartbeat and muscle spasm. I could feel my body reorienting around this human being. I could feel old scars tearing. I could feel the moment of birth in my identity as much as I felt the delivery of my baby. 

Because having a baby is a primal and violent thing. And if your body doesn’t go through the physical birth, your brain and heart will still go through the same painful restructure. The gravitational pulls on your affection and attention shift. The waxing and waning of patience and rest change drastically. When you bring a baby into your world, the solar system of your life changes centers.

There is a reason that lives are divided into before and after the birth, or loss of a child. And this moment was no different. I knew that I wasn’t the same. The screaming gooey human on my chest was demanding a change and the shifting had started. I had no idea what was to come. But the pain and promise of that moment was indelible. 

I loved. I loved the peachy hair fuzz and screaming purple face. I hoped. I felt all the nameless dreams I had harden into a steely resolve to protect all the possibilities I could. I promised myself to keep the horizons wide and to tell the truth. I cried for all the parts of myself that had died in the pain of what I had just accomplished. Even though I didn’t know the future I knew that the labor had just begun.