The Labor Saga - part 1
I cannot pretend that I am anywhere near 100% though physically I have healed from labor and have a healthy, determined little girl in my arms. I say this so you can be gentle as you read my next few posts - I have only been able to sleep in 2-4 hour shifts since my 44-hour labor. As a person with bipolar, I can’t express how much this has diminished my mental capacity - right now Dora the Explorer’s plot lines lose me. So be kind or I’ll have to go postpartum postal on your bupkes.
Despite my mental fog, it has been three weeks since our “blessed event” (what a semi-sarcastic euphemism that is!) and I really should at least attempt to tell my tale. Or return to writing. Or whatever.
Let me start by saying that child labor - as in the kind that brings children into the world, not putting a child to work in the coal mine with that little canary - is not at all like they show on television. A woman’s water typically doesn’t suddenly break and bring an onslaught of contractions worth screaming over. Oh, nay nay! Labor, for most women as it was for me, is a game of hurry up and wait. Contractions come - they range from uncomfortably ticklish to truly painful - and then they go for a few minutes. For hours on end, it’s an ebb and flow situation with little progress as far as dilation. Only 1 in 10 women will actually have her water break on its own, the rest of womankind must wait for the good OBGYN and his/her giant crochet needle. Oh my, but I get ahead of myself! (more…)
