Labor Pains

In just about every conversation I have with a group of women, the subject of our children comes up. I guess that it is inevitable, since we are members of the Mom club.  We love our children, and we want to share that funny thing that Caroline said, or the cute little picture of Joe with his father.  Children are conversation starters, and most moms love to share.  It is also inevitable that every mom will share their birth stories, and describe labor and delivery with all the gory details.

I can't share in those tales.   

I didn't have labor pains when I was pregnant. Zane came along well before that time. I didn't feel those twinges and pangs that signal the start of the birth process.  My water didn't break.  I didn't scream out my pain as I pushed my son into the world.  I wasn't even awake for my c-section.  Since I'd had c-sections before, I didn't even experience the pain that women experience after birth. 

At least that's what most people would say.  I would respectfully disagree.  I may not have experienced the physical sensations that society calls labor, true.  But I've had eight years of what I would certainly call labor pains.

Every time my son cries, I feel a pain in my heart.  When he is hurt, I hurt. Each time he falls down on the soccer field, I positively ache until he gets up again.  It's almost impossible for me to take him to the doctor, because I hurt every time they plunge a needle into his arm, even though I know the good of vaccines.  When he is sick, I long to be able to take his fever away, so he can be his normal, hyperactive self.  When Zane does something he is not supposed to, and I have to give him a consequence, it hurts me twice as much as it does him.

Once you become a mother, however you begin your journey, your attachment to your children is a shared journey.  Our love for them, strong as it is, makes mothers everywhere want to shield their children from the pains and hurts.  However, we also know that if we are to adequately prepare them for life, we have to let them explore, make their own choices, and get hurt.  That knowledge gouges at our souls, every single time, over a lifetime.

If those aren't labor pains, I don't know what they are.

Group Therapy

Stacey of Stacey’s Writing Moments chose Erma Bombeck’s Motherhood, The Second  Oldest Profession. Your line for this week, to open your stories, is….(drumroll please!!)

“One of the biggest complaints of motherhood is the lack of training.”

"One of the biggest complaints of motherhood is the lack of training,"  Abby Farnsworth spoke with authority. She was the oldest woman here. We all turned to listen, and the hush that fell over the room was reverent.

"Oh, we try to pretend like we know what we're doing," Abby continued. "We all played with the dolls when we were kids.  We pretended to feed them, burp them, and change their diapers with the pretend poop--what the hell was that stuff, anyway?  Never could get that crap off the wall.  No, taking care of dolls was lousy training for being a mother."

Abby paused, coughing delicately into the tissue she always kept in her sleeve.  Myrna offered Abby some of her water, and smiled broadly when Abby took a sip from the proffered glass.  We waited for Abby to collect her thoughts.

"And those parenting classes that they made us take when we were in high school?   Child development books?  Bah! Bunch of poppycock.  Filled us full of a false confidence, those did. Why, we came home from the hospital with our babies thinking that we knew it all. We go home thinking that everything will be perfect."

Abby's head hung low, her chin on her chest, staring fiercely at her lap.  Her voice was soft, but there was an intensity that held us captive.

"Nobody talks about babies born deaf or blind.  There's no class where they talk about that, tell you what to do, how to cope.  There's no book that describes the despair a mother feels when her baby won't eat, or when the palate is cleft. Nobody tells you about the baby who doesn't want to be touched, or cuddled, or cooed at. Nobody talks about the imperfections"

"That's when the real mothering is required, the kind they don't tell you about."

Abby glared at all of us.

"What's a woman supposed to do?" she hissed. "They don't talk about it, and it ain't in a book, but everybody knows.  It ain't right. Our men leave us. Our other children are moved to new families.  Everybody looks away and expect us to take care of the problem on our own!"

"And when it's done..."  her voice hitched, and a final tear rolled slowly down her cheek.  "Only after we've done the very thing that tears a piece of our soul away, only, when we give them what they wanted, then are we are allowed to return to our homes?  No. They bring us here, to rot. No husbands and no babies, imperfect or not. We die here alone. " 

Abby lapsed into a morose silence.  We all sat, lost to the world, remembering our own decisions, mourning our own children.  Several small sobs broke loose from the oppressive silence.

"Ladies." The pale psychologist who was supposed to be in charge of the group therapy quietly cleared his throat.  "Our time is up for today."

As the group shuffled out to head back to their rooms, the psychologist rubbed his eyes, as if he could scrub them clean, then wrote out his session notes.