Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Birth Preparation Class, Session One (Stomach Envy)

It has indeed been a strange day, one which started with a sad phone call about my grandfather's passing, and ended with my first session out of seven at Hadassah Hospital for the birth preparation course. Such is the cycle of life, death and rebirth.

The material was not new to me, with my profession as a Chiropractor giving me plenty of anatomical background. One of the doctors who presented was the woman who gave me my discharge papers from the fertility unit, and I was somewhat unimpressed that she did not remember me at all. Though I suppose they see and help so many women, it is easy to get lost in the crowd.

As the women walked into the room, I found myself quietly playing a competitive game of comparing stomachs, call it "Stomach Envy." I cannot help my competitive nature, and had to continually remind myself that while I might have the smallest bulge in the room, it means less weight to lose later. The crowd attending this course is quite varied, with one French couple, one Russian couple, several secular Israeli couples, several Ultra-Orthodox couples, and some of the hospital staff also due to give birth in the Fall. As far as I can tell, I am the only single mother there.

As both a Chiropractor and a prospective mother, I balked and became nauseous when they showed pictures of a vacuum birth and a forceps birth. However, when they started showing pictures of cringing women in labour, and couples holding and bathing and changing their newborns, I realized something: Oh my G-d, I am going to have a baby!! I almost started crying in the middle of the first lecture.

The expanding stomach, the kicking, the lack of my period and the planning has been enough to tell me that my life is changed forever; but today, for the first time, I saw myself in one of the labour rooms, pushing out a baby. My daughter.

The complex feelings come so quick at this moment, and I keep coming back to one thing: Oh my G-d, I am going to have a baby!

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