By: jaha Knight
Being pregnant is one of the most exciting times in a woman’s life. It’s also one of the most frightening. Stretch marks, widening hips, belly fat, milk-filled breasts and what is the leakage about? Your body will commit acts you never thought possible while you’re asleep. But this is your opportunity, your chance to leave an impression on the world through the miracle that is life.
I was a young mother, and was excited to be pregnant with my first child. I worried about how good I’d be at parenting, but nothing scared me more than how this baby was actually going to come out of my body. All the videos and birthing classes in the world don’t prepare you for the reality. I was fortunate. I know some mothers may be totally opposed to having drugs when they give birth but I was not.
The experience of childbirth was surreal. I felt like I was looking down on myself. Disconnected from the blips and boops emitting the monitor that was wrapped around my body. But the time had come for me to birth my joy. It was 6 a.m. Thursday morning and there was a golden glow from the lamp in the room. The sun was making its way across the sky and my husband (at the time) was sitting next to me dozing. The midwife walked in and gently shook me awake. She told me that it was time to push, because the baby was coming. I looked at her and closed my eyes thinking, “this lady is crazy, I am sleepy and I’m going back to sleep.” But goodness she was persistent.
I sat up in the bed and asked her, “what do I have to do now?” as if she were the one to impregnate me. She told me to hold my legs and begin pushing. I swear I was floating high above myself looking down at this scene. It didn’t even seem real. I didn’t feel a thing! I grabbed my legs and began to push. More so she would let me get back to my nap than actually realizing I was having this baby.
They kept telling me to push harder. I was wondering how easy they thought pushing with my legs in stirrups, a belly the size of a hard, over inflated balloon was. I began pushing with Herculean strength, panting and breaking out in sweat bubbles. My ex kept trying to feed me ice chips as if they were a delicacy and I couldn’t get enough. I had to turn on him. My head swiveled twice on my neck as if on a spit, “Get out of my FACE!” I screamed. Didn’t he see that I was busy trying to birth this child? I needed my nap and he just kept pushing those cold slivers of teeth frost into my mouth!
Forty three minutes later, our daughter was born. She was six pounds, eleven ounces of screaming, cheesy, beauty. They laid her straight from the hatch body on my chest and she squirmed around much like she did in my belly. I smiled at her and held her for a few minutes before I dozed off to sleep.
