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Monday, September 19, 2011

STILL waiting

Waiting for a baby to be born is a funny thing. The best analogy I can come up with is this - its like training for a marathon for months, only to have the start time and the course length a surprise. You may be in your pajamas, getting ready for bed, or at the grocery store or on your way to church or settling an arguement amongst the kiddies when BOOM the gun sounds and regardless of how much sleep you have had, how tired you are, when you last ate, you are OFF. TIME TO RACE.

Imagine a race like that!

Ridiculous, right?

Oh, and then there is the course itself. No training for that monster hill on mile 18. No looking up weather beforehand. Nope. Who knows what the course will look like. It may be cross country, in the cold wet weather. It might be blazing hot, uphill the entire way.

And THEN there is the length of the race. Yep, that is a surprise too. You might be sprinting, for just a few hours. You might be jogging for 27 hours. NO ONE KNOWS. And, I don't know much about racing but there is certainly different ways to train for these kinds of physical activities, right? The latter you work on endurance, pacing yourself, the former on all out energy bursts. Nope. None of that. You need to be ready for it all.

Pretty sucky huh?

And, makes you kind of in awe of childbirth, right? Especially childbirth that honors this surprise element. No scheduled c-section to fit baby's arrival into your (or doctors!) schedule. No pitocin to get it going on a convenient timetable, or when you can't take the waiting anymore. No epidural to carry you to the finish line. Not even a little "swiping of mebranes" to kickstart the race. Nope. Just waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

I am a terribly impatient person. Both children came 8 days before their due date. It is now 2 days until this little one is SUPPOSED to appear. If I had a traditional OB and didnt know more about childbirth and the importance of those last few weeks I would be on my knees BEGGING my doctor to at least give me a little swipe. But alas, I can't "unknow" what I know. (Read Henci Goer's "The thinking woman's guide to a better birth" if you too want to know some of this.)

Also, due dates suck. I wish I didnt even know "the Day" because really it means nothing. I tried to tell people, "I am due in September" but something about our culture, maybe our human nature, doesnt approve of this. We want to KNOW. We dont want to sit and wait. We don't like surprise marathons in the middle of the night.

I don't at all, like surprises like that. Maybe I am not impatient. Maybe its more the surprise element. I am a planner, adventurous, but a planner. I'd be happy to run a middle of the night marathon, IF I KNEW THE DATE. I want to have the house clean, laundry done, kids happy and content. Instead I am a crab. I clean the house every night before bed - spotlessly - lest I go into labor at night. The children languish in front of PBS kids day after day. My energy is waning. My body is aching. Oh, the aches! Unlike my other pregnancies, so uncomfortable, so tiring. And yet, sometime in the near future (one would hope, dear God!) I am going to be expected to endure a marathon of physical activity. I want to curl up in a ball until it happens but, no. We Scandanavians don't do self-pity well, well we do but internally only (HA). No. We make jokes and clean obsessively and bake cookies and well, we keep on keeping on.

And so. Here I go. Monday morning. Anybody want a cookie?

7 comments:

  1. this is all so true! It made me laugh (and definitely sympathize with you!! I was there not too long ago...) Hoping your new love arrives soon!

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  2. Oh Sara. So much talent! You are my hero. You remind me of days gone by. You make me hurt for your discomfort. You make me wish I was a magician and could wave a magic wand to get this baby here. You make me proud to be your grandma. You are loved.

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  3. you are loved indeed! I'm remembering the many times I tried to make things be by a certain time.....love you (don't pray for patience.)

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  4. Fantastic analogy!
    Here's hoping baby decides to sound the gun soon, and that the race is a beautiful, peaceful, not too long one.

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  5. Oh, Sara! For some reason I didn't realize your other babies were early. No wonder you want to go into labor now, now, now! I was in this exact mindset with all the other babies. With Bethany, I kept stressing out that she would be born on the "wrong" day, that my labor would be too fast (making it hard for Chris to juggle the big kids), etc. I finally started taking long walks ALONE every day. I don't think brought on labor, BUT it gave me the chance to realize God would not let the baby be born on the wrong day. It would be the right day! And that gave me strength to endure a few more days till labor started.

    I will be praying for you. Especially that you are able to rest and relax some in the next few days.

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  6. Sara - I still say you need to get paid for this writing. I was reading this and thinking that this would TOTALLY go GREAT in some sort of print medium where women standing at a checkout line could grab it and read it. Thanks for sharing. I've been praying for you and it's kind of funny, but I've felt led to pray that your mom would be free to be there for you. I wasn't sure why I was praying in that direction until I heard about Niki and all that is going on there. Anyway, praying for you here hoping your race sounds very soon. I can't wait to read about it!

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