It Is A Terrible Thing Not To Become A Woman When One Ceases To Be A Girl

Mamacita says:  This was formerly posted back in February of 2009, but since so many people are blogging about their pregnancies and deliveries these days, I thought I’d rerun this one of mine. I have others, but I kind of like this one best.

First of all, I enjoyed being pregnant. Heck, I LOVED it! When else can a woman just sit and read, and know she’s accomplishing something wonderful at the same time? I felt wonderful, pregnant. I felt exhilarated, when I wasn’t tired, and I felt justified in EATING, and I didn’t have to constantly suck in my gut – because my gut was not merely a gut; it was a PERSON – I got gusts and boost of incredible energy during which I would clean and dust and wash and tidy until the cows came home. I was even happier during my second pregnancy, because I knew for a fact by then that all the little twinges, etc, were completely natural and only to be expected, and I feared nothing. NOTHING. I didn’t read a single pregnancy book during my second pregnancy; not because I felt there was nothing more to be learned, but more because I felt that a lot of what is in such books is there to frighten naive women into buying unnecessary things, or to frighten women, period,  when there is really nothing to be frighted OF. None of these opinions apply, mind you, to women who are having genuinely serious problem pregnancies.

Bear in mind, also, that it’s been a long time since I’ve been pregnant, and while the many means of GETTING pregnant have not changed (smirk), the options for delivery have become many, and I can’t help but think that some of them are downright silly. Not as silly as many of the restrictions and rules that used to apply, but still, well, silly. I mean, for my first delivery, I wasn’t even allowed to get up and use the bathroom! I made damn sure it was written down in red ink in my records, for my second. It would be a mighty stupid woman who would give birth in a toilet and not realize it, although I also realize that the world is full of women who are, yes, just that stupid. I, however, was NOT one of THEM, and I wanted to use the toilet when I wanted to use the toilet, and that second time, I wandered all over the place in the few tiny little minutes allotted to that particular delivery.


<–That’s my son. He’s 27 years old, but whenever I think of him, this is one of the images my mind instantly focuses on. He was born with a full head of bright red hair; his hair was so bright, I could hear people in the hospital nursery hallway commenting about it. “Didja see that one kid with the red hair?” “Will you look at the redhead over there?” I lay in my bed and smiled. Not only had I seen the redheaded baby, I was going to take him home with me and keep him forever.

I’d had Zappa in only twenty minutes;  I woke up in labor, my water broke as I walked the few feet to the bathroom, and we were in the car and bookin’ to town.  We almost got stopped by a train, but a little push on the gas pedal took care of that.  We pulled up in front of my mother’s house, threw Belle out the window into Mom’s waiting arms, and dashed off to the hospital.  Hub dropped me off at the emergency room door and I had the baby while my husband was parking the car. When he came running back inside, he found me and the doctor standing in the hallway admiring the baby through the window. Total time:  20 minutes.  I highly recommend this method.

This was before the days when new mothers had got to spend every waking moment with their new baby. Sometimes I think it was better that way; it was like having training wheels for a day or two before we were expected to ride that new adult-sized bike all by ourselves, with the occasional “Look Ma, no hands” stints that we all love so much as parents. Our babies were brought to us every couple of hours, and were then taken back to the nursery so we could get some genuine rest. Did we “bond?” Of course we did. We just didn’t need to “bond” in front of everybody, and a woman would have to be nuts not to take advantage of the naptime. OUR naptime, that is. Once we had the baby home, we weren’t going to be doing much of ANY kind of sleeping for a long, long, long, long, long time. As in. . . YEARS.

Having babies isn’t what I’d call a “comfy, pain-free hobby,” but it’s also not the horror a lot of older women paint it to be, and usually in front of a young pregnant woman. (Why do they DO THAT? How insensitive!) I had no trouble spittin’ them out – did I mention the 20 minutes? – and while I know most women aren’t that lucky, I do wonder at the low tolerance for pain some people demonstrate in public.

My hospital roommate for Zappa’s birth was a woman I still refer to as “The Big Sissy.” She wept and screamed and required the company of her husband, her mother, her sisters, her bestest friends, and countless numbers of churchy acquaintances throughout her entire labor. This meant, back then, that while SHE had company, I couldn’t. Them was da rules. And when they finally did take her away to another room to have her baby – thank Heaven – she practically had a camera crew in there with her to record her every scream, groan, spasm, fart, poop, and vaginal tear for all posterity. After her baby finally came, she then needed her husband to stay with her every second to COMFORT her and be WITH her, and her mother to remind her that she’d been through a terrible experience and needed rest and a lot of babying herself, which meant I couldn’t have MY baby in the room with me.

I hated that Big Sissy then and I hate her now, 27 years later.

I made do, though. I spent most of my time in the hallway looking at his beauty: my son, the redheaded one in the corner crib, the pretty one, the baby who made all the other newborns look like either Winston Churchill or the wrong end of a cow.

The Big Sissy’s baby, for example, looked like the love child of Mr. Potato Head and Linda Tripp. In fact, The Big Sissy looked a lot like Linda Tripp. I hated her. I also hated her horrible mother and her ugly husband and the parade of dowdy women who were kneeling all over the floor giving God advice about how He should look after The Big Sissy and her baby.  Wahh wahh wahh, pray pray, sob sob, boo hoo, oh, craponthemall.

Where was their consideration for The Big Sissy’s roommate? There wasn’t any.  Women such as these color my perception of Christians still today.  (I AM one; I’m just not like these pathetic specimens.)  (I hope I die before I become like them.)  (I suppose it’s not nice to judge them, but I do it mostly from the joy it gives me.)  (It’s kind of like pointing to hardened criminals on the post office wall and being glad you’re not there, and knowing full well you never will be.)

Hub could not get off work to take us home from the hospital;  this did NOT make me cry nor did it traumatize either of us in any way. Stuff happens, and we deal with it. Sheesh.

My mother picked us up and even stopped at the grocery store on the way home so I could run in and buy some things.  People in the store looked at my hospital bracelet and my only slightly flatter stomach and almost backed away in horror.  Why was I OUT?  I should be in BED!  RESTING!  I felt like some kind of freak for being fine and hearty.

I shrugged and went home to my two-children family:  bellenewbrotherwe felt so lucky!  So blessed!  That is because, we were.  (Check out the patches on the sofa!  Those were to keep the snakes from popping up through the worn places.)

With Belle, two years earlier, I’d been so afraid of this pain I’d heard about from so many “helpful” women and read about in so many “helpful” books that I agreed to a spinal; this, of course, since I have never been a person who took orders well, knocked me flat on my back for about a week, which meant that other people gave my baby her first bath, her first burpie, her first. . . well, lots of things. I listened too much and I read too much and I believed everything and everyone, and when the advice was contradictory, I sometimes did BOTH. I was afraid of everything. Most of all, I was afraid of myself; what if I, in my ignorance, somehow did something wrong and the baby would cry? Or. . . die? Seriously, I was that stupid.  Her labor only lasted just under five hours, but in five hours, a naive young thing can fall for a lot of hooey.  Tomorrow is Belle’s birthday, in sarasofa1fact.  Happy Birthday, my Princess.  Look, everyone, at how beautiful she is!  How beautiful she’s always been!

The second time, I was smarter. Also, there wasn’t time for anything anyway, so I just had the baby and made fun of The Big Sissy and dealt with life as it came my way. It was a far superior way than the first.

So, what’s the moral of this story? Do I have to have one? I’ll drag a few in by the hind legs and say that it might be “Embrace life – don’t hide from it. FEEL things. Laugh at yourself and others; to hell with self esteem. Pity the Big Sissies, but don’t make excuses for them, and for God’s sake don’t be one of them. Be aware of people and don’t let any whiny selfishness intrude upon the rights of someone else. Be an adult. Buck up and show some spunk. Don’t let others make an invalid of you. Get up. Let others watch the baby once in a while so you can get some sleep. Motherhood is full of pain; get used to it and don’t whine and cry your way through it. Motherhood is full of joy; focus on that part. And did I mention “grow up?”

It is a terrible thing not to become a woman when one ceases to be a girl.


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It Is A Terrible Thing Not To Become A Woman When One Ceases To Be A Girl — 20 Comments

  1. Having had 3 myself, I can tell you it’s not that bad. Not good, either! I hate giving birth, to tell the truth. (But, oh, how I love those babies!) I’ve spent enough time in the birth center to tell you that most women don’t scream very much, or cry very much, but there’s always one woman who just CAN’T DO IT IT HURTS OH PLEASE GET IT OUT AND BTW HONEY I HOPE YOU DIE FOR DOING THIS TO ME!

    Maybe it just really hurts them that much, but it’s always been my impression that the more robust the lady’s health, and the better her pedicure, the more likely she is to holler like a cat with its tail caught in the door. It’s the attention. Some women just neeeeeed it.

    On the other hand, those hormones on the second day after birth are so bad, I wouldn’t fault any woman for crying, ever. I have a rather stoic personality and I rarely shed a tear, but you can’t come into my room on the second day without flippers and a snorkel or you’ll drown in the tears. Hormones are a bitch. With each of my babies I’ve had to have a nurse take over on the second day for several hours while I get myself straightened out.

  2. Having had 3 myself, I can tell you it’s not that bad. Not good, either! I hate giving birth, to tell the truth. (But, oh, how I love those babies!) I’ve spent enough time in the birth center to tell you that most women don’t scream very much, or cry very much, but there’s always one woman who just CAN’T DO IT IT HURTS OH PLEASE GET IT OUT AND BTW HONEY I HOPE YOU DIE FOR DOING THIS TO ME!

    Maybe it just really hurts them that much, but it’s always been my impression that the more robust the lady’s health, and the better her pedicure, the more likely she is to holler like a cat with its tail caught in the door. It’s the attention. Some women just neeeeeed it.

    On the other hand, those hormones on the second day after birth are so bad, I wouldn’t fault any woman for crying, ever. I have a rather stoic personality and I rarely shed a tear, but you can’t come into my room on the second day without flippers and a snorkel or you’ll drown in the tears. Hormones are a bitch. With each of my babies I’ve had to have a nurse take over on the second day for several hours while I get myself straightened out.

  3. I remember those days of having to bow to a hospital’s seemingly silly rules! My roommate for my first time was a selfish, immature woman who didn’t care about me at all; just herself. She HAD to have someone with her at all times and even then all she did was cry. Depressing! The second time, things had changed considerably and I could have my baby with me whether my roommate had guests or not. I still opted for a few baby-free hours in the afternoon, though. So I hear ya, Jane!

    I did go for the meds, though. I don’t deal with pain at all! But that was my choice, and everybody’s different. I would like to have been like you, but oh well.

  4. I remember those days of having to bow to a hospital’s seemingly silly rules! My roommate for my first time was a selfish, immature woman who didn’t care about me at all; just herself. She HAD to have someone with her at all times and even then all she did was cry. Depressing! The second time, things had changed considerably and I could have my baby with me whether my roommate had guests or not. I still opted for a few baby-free hours in the afternoon, though. So I hear ya, Jane!

    I did go for the meds, though. I don’t deal with pain at all! But that was my choice, and everybody’s different. I would like to have been like you, but oh well.

  5. I only had one… she didn’t want to come out… would probably still be in there now.. 23 years later if she could have stayed. So I had a saddle block with a new fangled thing called duramorph… you could move but no pain for 24 hours… it was great.. I could walk around right after and everything and then the pain shots hurt worse than the pain so… forget it.
    You are right… grow up… and keep on growing up as the kids grow. They are not going to die if their binky falls on the floor and you don’t have access to boiling water at that moment so you wipe it on the burp rag and put it back in their mouth. They are all going to fall and hit their head… maybe bust a lip or scrape a knee or two… get over it…don’t instill that fear of the red stuff…it is a sign of life. If I had it to do over… I would have had a second.. preferably a girl as well. She would have probably had red hair.. I couldn’t get lucky twice. (Boys with red hair do better than girls, although it seems that nowadays the red hair is really in fashion). Mine is 23 and grown up and out of the nest…. 15 hours away.

  6. I only had one… she didn’t want to come out… would probably still be in there now.. 23 years later if she could have stayed. So I had a saddle block with a new fangled thing called duramorph… you could move but no pain for 24 hours… it was great.. I could walk around right after and everything and then the pain shots hurt worse than the pain so… forget it.
    You are right… grow up… and keep on growing up as the kids grow. They are not going to die if their binky falls on the floor and you don’t have access to boiling water at that moment so you wipe it on the burp rag and put it back in their mouth. They are all going to fall and hit their head… maybe bust a lip or scrape a knee or two… get over it…don’t instill that fear of the red stuff…it is a sign of life. If I had it to do over… I would have had a second.. preferably a girl as well. She would have probably had red hair.. I couldn’t get lucky twice. (Boys with red hair do better than girls, although it seems that nowadays the red hair is really in fashion). Mine is 23 and grown up and out of the nest…. 15 hours away.

  7. Twenty minutes. Whoa.

    Mine was thirty hours, so you can BET they gave me painkillers– I do not live in freakin Mongolia nor in 3000 BC– but otherwise, okie dokie! We had a gal on our tour of the hospital who wanted to give birth in a tub with dolphins (can you imagine how traumatizing that is to sentient beings such as dolphins? I mean REALLY, where’s the ASPCA when you need ’em or at least Jacques Cousteau or one of his kids now that he’s gone?) and then to go home that very night with her infant and completely out of control two year old who nearly knocked my fat pregnant self down running circle between my legs. She also wanted the placenta for some kind of recipe she was going to make.

    I am NOT kidding. Really. Thanks God I don’t live in California, or this story would be even weirder.

    Yeah, and one of my neighbors said to me. “You mean you sent the baby back to the nursery at night???????” with all the implications that my kid would then grow up to be Jack the Ripper. Needless to say, we are no longer friends.

    And why why WHY didn’t they kick out Big Sissy’s swarm of humanity so you could have some time to yo’self? Maybe if you’d drawn a Pentagram on the floor or talked about eating the placenta?

    Just sayin’.

  8. Twenty minutes. Whoa.

    Mine was thirty hours, so you can BET they gave me painkillers– I do not live in freakin Mongolia nor in 3000 BC– but otherwise, okie dokie! We had a gal on our tour of the hospital who wanted to give birth in a tub with dolphins (can you imagine how traumatizing that is to sentient beings such as dolphins? I mean REALLY, where’s the ASPCA when you need ’em or at least Jacques Cousteau or one of his kids now that he’s gone?) and then to go home that very night with her infant and completely out of control two year old who nearly knocked my fat pregnant self down running circle between my legs. She also wanted the placenta for some kind of recipe she was going to make.

    I am NOT kidding. Really. Thanks God I don’t live in California, or this story would be even weirder.

    Yeah, and one of my neighbors said to me. “You mean you sent the baby back to the nursery at night???????” with all the implications that my kid would then grow up to be Jack the Ripper. Needless to say, we are no longer friends.

    And why why WHY didn’t they kick out Big Sissy’s swarm of humanity so you could have some time to yo’self? Maybe if you’d drawn a Pentagram on the floor or talked about eating the placenta?

    Just sayin’.

  9. Your story brought back memories of my own. My oldest was born in an military hospital — where pain medication was frowned upon! I had a very long labor and consoled myself by believing I would eventually pass out from the pain (like cowboys in old westerns do). It never happened. I do remember when I was in the recovery room, a nurse brought me a stack of bedding and told me to which room I was assigned. I carried the bedding just hours after a very long labor, down the hall to make my bed.
    Second child, public hospital, I was in and out within 36 hours.
    Its truly amazing the advances we have nowadays in labor and delivery.

  10. Your story brought back memories of my own. My oldest was born in an military hospital — where pain medication was frowned upon! I had a very long labor and consoled myself by believing I would eventually pass out from the pain (like cowboys in old westerns do). It never happened. I do remember when I was in the recovery room, a nurse brought me a stack of bedding and told me to which room I was assigned. I carried the bedding just hours after a very long labor, down the hall to make my bed.
    Second child, public hospital, I was in and out within 36 hours.
    Its truly amazing the advances we have nowadays in labor and delivery.

  11. I know what she is talking about, ts. Back in the day, only one baby and family at a time was allowed in the hospital room. Nice roommates took turns graciously, but I sympathize with Jane because I had a selfish roommate too, when my twins were born, whose husband never left so I couldn’t hvbe my babies with me much. Fortunately, this practice isn’t practiced any more! I doubt it’s her memory, more like it’s inconceivable to people nowadays that it could ever have been so weird back then!

  12. I know what she is talking about, ts. Back in the day, only one baby and family at a time was allowed in the hospital room. Nice roommates took turns graciously, but I sympathize with Jane because I had a selfish roommate too, when my twins were born, whose husband never left so I couldn’t hvbe my babies with me much. Fortunately, this practice isn’t practiced any more! I doubt it’s her memory, more like it’s inconceivable to people nowadays that it could ever have been so weird back then!

  13. I still say your memory is fuzzy when it comes to your recollection that she “needed rest and a lot of babying herself, which meant I [you] couldn’t have MY baby in the room”. That just doesn’t make sense in a hospital, Jane:)

  14. I still say your memory is fuzzy when it comes to your recollection that she “needed rest and a lot of babying herself, which meant I [you] couldn’t have MY baby in the room”. That just doesn’t make sense in a hospital, Jane:)

  15. THIS is the best post I’ve read in months and months- possibly years. And thank goodness I stopped by to say how much I love you because we were busy becoming unemployed in February when you first posted it but having recovered from that, I was missing you. And I saw you over at Sparky’s and that reminded me. You are one helluva fine writer. And woman. Thanks, Jane.

  16. THIS is the best post I’ve read in months and months- possibly years. And thank goodness I stopped by to say how much I love you because we were busy becoming unemployed in February when you first posted it but having recovered from that, I was missing you. And I saw you over at Sparky’s and that reminded me. You are one helluva fine writer. And woman. Thanks, Jane.

  17. I myself have never had a baby but I have known hundreds of women who have….And each one experienced their pregnancies differently and the births differently, too….Your experiences sound quite wonderfuk—especially the second time round—Talk about quick!
    But I must say I am surprised at how angry you still are at that woman you call The Big Sissy….She certainly sounds like she and her family were not very caring about you and your needs and I think that is a shame….But how she experienced the birth of her child and her pain…well, everyone’s pain threshold is different. And one cannot always judge others by oneself….
    I LOVE that your son had such RED Hair….that had to be gorgeous! And 20 minutes! You just made it to that hospital, didn’t you? LOL!

  18. I myself have never had a baby but I have known hundreds of women who have….And each one experienced their pregnancies differently and the births differently, too….Your experiences sound quite wonderfuk—especially the second time round—Talk about quick!
    But I must say I am surprised at how angry you still are at that woman you call The Big Sissy….She certainly sounds like she and her family were not very caring about you and your needs and I think that is a shame….But how she experienced the birth of her child and her pain…well, everyone’s pain threshold is different. And one cannot always judge others by oneself….
    I LOVE that your son had such RED Hair….that had to be gorgeous! And 20 minutes! You just made it to that hospital, didn’t you? LOL!

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