Convoluted Emotional Implications, Part Three:

It's about 5:00 am (I think), I'm at 7 cm. The midwife is here, ready and waiting. J is getting excited again. I am still waiting for the ctx to stop so I can go to sleep and have this baby... maybe Monday, or something. I remember doing a lot of squatting and a lot of sitting on the toilet. I was in and out of the pool, afraid to stay in for very long, since the ctx spaced out dramatically in the water-- even at SEVEN CENTIMETERS. Can you see why I was still thinking I'd be pregnant for another few days at least?

Since I'm titling these posts "Convoluted Emotional Implications", let's talk about my emotions at this point. I had stopped crying, but I was still caught in this web of not wanting to "do this". As I got to the point of beginning to push, I remember crying out "No, no, I can't DO this, make it stop, I don't WANT to" with each ctx. I know. I admit it. I'm such a baby. In between ctx I felt bad about it, if that makes it any better. I remember turning to the midwife and saying "I'm really not usually this high maintenance." (Which is totally not true. Ask anyone in my family.) As the ctx (finally!) got closer together and began to last two or more minutes, and I was pushing with almost every ctx, I started to get more and more frantic. I felt caught, stuck, trapped.

And here's where that quote from the old hymn comes in:

Trust and Obey
For there's no other way

J and the midwife each said something to me that marked the turning point in this whole experience. First, J got up in my face, during one really bad ctx when I was nearly out of my head with resisting and fighting it, and said "Listen to me, you've got to stop this. Stop saying you can't do this. I don't say want you to say that any more. You can do this, you've done it twice before, and you have to do it. There's no other way."

Obey.

It hit a nerve somehow. I quit saying "I can't". Instead I looked at the midwife and said "I don't know what to DO. I can't figure out how to DO this." And she said "You don't have to DO anything. Stop thinking so hard about it. Turn your brain off and let your body do its job. It's doing fine. I understand why, after all these weeks of your body messing with your mind, you'd have a hard time trusting. But this baby is coming NOW and you've got to trust that your body can do this."

Trust.

And right then, I swear, that's the first time I actually realized that I was having a baby. Right now. Any second. I turned my brain off (actually, I'm pretty sure that was Divine Intervention). And that's when it started to get Awesome.