Most births have a “plan” and mine was fairly simple: Give me the drugs and we’ll go from there.
What I never expected was my husband and I driving home from our first birthing class, imagining what lay ahead of us, and having my water suddenly break all over the passenger seat. I remember looking at him with an unspoken “holy sh*t,” neither of us grasping the parenting lesson we’d just been slapped with – we were not in charge anymore. We u-turned back to the hospital and a whirlwind two hours later I was lying in the OR – arms outstretched and a spinal numbing my lower half – while my first baby was cut out of me five weeks too early.
Fast-forward nearly five years and it’s the Friday before that same baby is off to kindergarten. A trip to her favorite park and school shoe shopping is on the docket for later, but right now I’m finishing up what the mom blogs would call my “self-care” (aka a morning yoga class). As I lay down in the savasana “resting” pose, I feel a little tug in my lower abdomen. It’s the familiar, yet still unnatural, pull of whatever is stitched together under my skin at my C-section scar adjusting as I stretch out my legs and lay my arms at my side, hands open. My eyes close as I sink into post-workout, mellow bliss. I can hear muffled giggles from the childcare room through the adjacent wall and recognize the sweet sound of my daughter’s among them.
Then, not one, but multiple tears start streaming down my cheeks. OMG! I’m supposed to be doing my self-care and stuff, not crying! Oh no, here come more. I do a quick mental calculation. Nope. My period is weeks away. What is bringing this on?