I had always assumed that someday I would stumble upon something fantastic that I'd be ready to devote my life to. Little did I know, getting knocked up would provide me that opportunity. There are very few things in life that I am scared by, but those few things positively terrify me. Those things are sharks, alligators, the dentist, needles in my veins, with childbirth weighting in as the worst thing I would most likely have to experience. Getting my wisdom teeth out, which combined fears #3 and #4, got crossed off the list at 19 and validated all the reasons I was dreading it. When we accidentally got pregnant 3 months after getting married, I felt like a ticking time bomb. I'm the only pregnant woman I've ever known of who would collapse in hysterics at least once a week, freaking out about having to give birth. I loved that little baby inside me with utter fascination and devotion, but still resented the fact that he HAD to come out. I felt betrayed by my own body for having gone and created life entirely without my permission. I adored being pregnant but every day that passed was one day closer to D-Day when I would have to push a melon out of my hoo, and I was just immature, hormonal, and emotional enough to throw myself across my bed on a regular basis and have myself a good weep about it while my 19 year old husband watched helplessly from the doorway. Poor man.
My way of facing my fear was to learn every possible thing about pregnancy and childbirth. I read every book on the subject in both the Charleston (South Carolina) County and Rapid City (South Dakota) County library systems. Literally. The more I read, the more I began to honestly believe that natural childbirth would be the smartest decision I could make for both myself and my sweet unborn child, much to my utter horror. So now not only did I have to give birth despite my great desire to remain pregnant for the rest of my life and love my baby just where he was, but now I had to FEEL every moment of it? Hence the crying and gnashing of teeth. By the end of my pregnancy I knew everything there was to know about the birthing process, having read so much and having extracted birth stories every woman I spoke to during my pregnancy for more than 5 minutes. Armed with this vast knowledge, I was no longer scared of what was coming and felt up to the challenge of having an unmedicated birth. I got a lot of skeptical looks from moms who had received an epidurral, with that she-really-has-no-idea-what-she's-talking-about look on their faces, but I also had a lot of support from people like my own mother who did it 6 times and promised me it absolutely would not be as bad as I had imagined for myself.
When the day came, I had a great experience with only one contraction right up to the point of what I could tolerate pain-wise, but just then I started feeling like I had to push and it was time for the part I actually got to control. I pushed 4 times and Ayden came out with a pop and slither with his bottom lip stuck out in protest. During my birth and especially the next 24 hours spent in the hospital, my nurses made a world of difference and their attention and pampering was fantastic. When things really clicked for me, though, was my first bathroom experience after Ayden was born. Just a few hours after giving birth my nurse came into my room and told me it was time to use the bathroom, which I ever so politely declined. I had no intention of urinating on the fresh stitches in my hoo, thank you very much! But she was insistent and promised me that it would not hurt to either walk or pee, which I was still skeptical about but could see that she meant business and was not going to let me stay in bed. I staggered to the bathroom only to discover when I sat down on the toilet that there was another nurse following behind me cleaning up what looked like a murder scene. (I took a picture of the bloody toilet when I stood up, but my husband would disown me if I shared it here.) You can imagine my embarrassment when I realized that trail of gore had come from me as I walked across the room, and I apologized profusely and said that I would clean it up myself in a few moments (yea right). She told me that this was her job and it did not gross her out at all, and by her tone and mannerisms I could tell that she really was not disgusted by me or my gore. This made me feel absolutely at ease, cared for, and safe. Then the two of them put me in the bathtub full of hot water and I washed the whole laborious job of giving birth off myself and basked in the glow of having a new baby while staring down at the lump of flesh where my beautiful baby used to be. Meanwhile my nurses finished cleaning up my mess, these two strange women in the bathroom where I floated naked and completely at ease just feet away from them. I thought to myself, "What a fantastic job, to be a part of this happy time in women's lives and take care of them when they can't help themselves." And that my friends, is the moment I decided to become a nurse.
