The Lesson

“When I have a baby, bad things happen.”

That is the lesson I have learned.

Natural birth at its best glows up the whole experience with gobs of endorphins, a vast and powerful reward, maybe even encouragement to do the whole thing again someday. Well, I got that with my healing, wonderful free (FREE!) birth last August. I remember pushing her out, the joy and relief and the end of all pain. A world away from the pain-numb-cut-sleep-pain(and on and on) of the hospital-bound inaugural event of my motherhood.

But then came the battle. The belittlement. The home invasion. The threat.

“When I have a baby, bad things happen.”

And there are selfish reasons I want to wait now before getting pregnant again: Like, I enjoy being not pregnant, I want to have my body back post-breastfeeding for a while (whenever that is), and I want to try something besides the intensity of infant-parenting before going back to it again. Or, you know, I could just stop here. My parents had two children, and that worked out fine.

Beyond the selfishness, though, is the lesson learned. Bad things. I get cut, altered, depressed and want to die. Or people come to run my life and steal my kids.

Even as those bad things haven’t included loss of life, I take pregnancy and birth too seriously to think all will certainly be well. There’s that scarred womb hanging in there, being a riskier place for any life that tries to inhabit it. And I have tasted the freedom of a birth without bossiness, I don’t want to be in a position to have to make those decisions again knowing what I know about the way I labor and just how good it can be when undisturbed. I don’t want to love and lose, and I’m exhausted by the thought of taking that responsibility again. Oh, and if I get pregnant again, even with everything I know, I could still get cut. Again. Either by necessity or court order. I would rather die. (At least that’s how it feels right now.)

I hate both assaults on my births with a fiery passion and I cannot say that I am always doing well with loving the enemies who did the assaulting. I hate my scar so very much it invades the way I feel about my whole body. And I hate what the midwives and social services did to my confidence and to some of my friendships and to those precious months of my family’s life. I want to be done with assaults! I want to be done with this pain! And hey, I really would rather have been celebrated instead of humiliated [BOTH TIMES], but you can’t have everything, eh?

I’m looking forward to going home and getting my medal. And…the way through I see involves a break in this childbearing gig, but I am the Lord’s, and if he has other plans I will do my best to trust him to show me another way through. And hope…that He will change my tune, teach me more excellent lessons:

“When I have a baby, the forces of evil tremble and are enraged. Though they plot, though they attack, they do not prevail. God laughs at them as He comes to my aid, using everything meant as harm for good instead.”

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