My son, these are your last few days on the inside.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve been praying away the hours, hoping that every cramp and contraction signalled that you were about to make your grand entrance.  I’ve been wishing away the days, trying to speed things up.  I’ve Googled too much.  I’ve complained too much.  Every morning I wake up, shocked that I am still pregnant.  Today marks 40 weeks.  40 weeks that you have been in my belly, 40 weeks that I have allowed myself to dream of you.  I’ve wanted you for so long, and cried for you for many more than 40 weeks before you finally found your way to us.

May 12th.  My actual due date.  When your brother’s due date finally arrived, he was already here.  Safely in our arms.  We never had to wonder.  I never had to eat a cheeseburger with pineapple and spicy teriyaki sauce, an order of onion rings, a root beer, and a late night snack of strawberry shortcake.  But tonight I did.

This is a whole new world for me.  And I’m a little afraid.

Then something shifted today.  I turned the music up loud while I did the dishes.  I forced myself to participate in life.  I promised Max that we would go out for dinner as a family.  I hauled my enormous self out to the pool and put my feet in, as Sean and Max floated by in their new raft.  And I realized….

You will be here when you’re ready.

Write your own story.

Your beginning is yours.  You decide your birthday.  You tell me when you’re ready to make your transition into this big, beautiful world.

Write your own story.

You get to introduce yourself to us.  You pave the way.  Show your own unique temperament.  Challenge us with everything that is different about you.  Distinguish yourself in a way that defines your name, your personality, your destiny.

Write your own story.

Will you be a reader?  An athlete?  An introvert?  A boy who likes to snuggle?  Will you dance when you hear music, or lose yourself in building elaborate cities with Legos?  Will you nap?  Will you run?  Will your laughter outweigh your tears?  Will you fit?  Will you struggle?  Will you push yourself to fly?  I don’t know you now, but I will spend every moment of my life learning you, starting today.

Write your own story.

I love you and your brother with every ounce of my soul.  My job is to guide you through the crazy that is life, the unexpected, the hard, the hard-won.  My sweet, independent boys.  My two sons, who I can only gently guide as you show the world who you are meant to be.  I will stand back and pray for grace, as you unveil who you are.

Write your own story.

Your elbow sculpts a castle from the inside of my belly.  I imagine that you are yawning and unfurling your strong legs, as the skin that’s stretched taut across my stomach accommodates you for the last few days.  I put my hand where your tiny back must be, and say a prayer for your safe arrival.  I am ready, but the words are not mine to write.  I will love you into this world.  I will laugh you into my arms.  I will wait, and hope, and dream, for as long as it takes.  Until you are ready.

Write your own story.

All pictures compliments of Lissymack Photography

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Perhaps you noticed my (very public) freak-out a few days ago.

The one where my OB calmly told me at 38 weeks that she was going on vacation, my baby was huuuuuuge, and she’d do me a favor by scheduling a C-section for…..today.

Guess where Baby Ben is right now?

Still in my belly.  Enjoying the mid-afternoon snack that I just gave him…..almonds, chocolate babka, and OJ.  Because you know, if he isn’t big enough already, I thought I’d fatten him up a little more.

My amazing doula spent a good 30 minutes talking me down from the ledge on Tuesday, and helping me to figure out some alternative solutions.  I immediately called the “famous among local Mommies” Dr JDH, who for some crazy reason, agreed that taking on a 38 weeks pregnant VBAC mama with a huuuuuuuuge baby was a FINE idea.

I waddled in to his office on Wednesday.  “Feel free to take all the time you need with him” his nurse said.  “We want to  make sure you get all of your questions answered.”

He was kind-faced, full of recent case studies and statistics, and looked at me like I had three eyeballs when I asked him what kind of eviction date he would give this baby.  “You’re a perfect candidate for a VBAC” he said.  “And if your baby is truly 8 or 9 pounds, that is not too big to birth vaginally.”  Did I mention that when he measured me, I was 37……NOT 43 LIKE MY OLD DOCTOR SAID?!  How does that happen?  Fascinating stuff, this birthing business.  Hmmm.

So here we are.  Me, and Ben.  I found the courage to choose my own adventure and switch care providers at 38 weeks, and Ben (hopefully) gets to choose his very own birthday.

Until then, we wait.  We go night-swimming in this crazy heat wave.  And we eat a little more babka.

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My son is sleeping with the window open tonight, and I’m terrified that someone will pull out the screen and kidnap him.  Last night when I stretched my 38 weeks pregnant belly over the side of the bed to grab my cell phone charger, something below my ribs felt like it tore….and I’m sure it was my placenta.  When I boiled 2 ears of corn on the stove tonight, I wondered whether the heavy stoneware pot could handle that much boiling water.  Would it crack and explode, sending burning water all over the kitchen?  Did I remember to lock my car doors and set the alarm?  Did my water just break, or do I really need to pee?  Did I really close the pool cover after Max swam tonight, or should I double-check?

I have always been filled with fear.

“Do you have your car keys?” I yell out the door, as my husband leaves for work.  “Make sure to hold Max’s hand really tightly when you walk to the park….he could dart into someone’s driveway as they’re backing up” I text our Nanny, from the coffee shop that I have just arrived at.

I can’t shake the gnawing anxiety that consumes me.  It’s been my constant companion since I was a child, crying rivers of tears in the back seat of my mom’s car.  I was paralyzed each day, as she tried to drop me off at school.  I refused to get out of the car.   Refused to go to class.  I was afraid of everything, and there were very few places where I felt safe.   Tonight, I’m wishing that I was nestled back into the worn leather seats of our old Volvo…..because when the world spins out of control, I sometimes forget to breathe.

There is a 38 week baby bouncing painfully around in my stomach, and today the doctor looked at me with alarm and declared “This is a BIG one.  I would not recommend a VBAC.  Let’s schedule a C-section for Friday.”

Max sat next to me as the ultrasound tech moved a goopy wand across my enormous belly.  “Hey!  Doctor!” he yelled.  “What that button do?  Can I touch it?  Can I see?  Can I hold the wand?”.  Finally, he slipped his little hand in mine and asked “Mommy, can I sit up there with you?”  Of course honey, come snuggle right here.  He tucked his head in the tiny valley that curves between my belly and the bottom of my breasts, and sighed.  The ultrasound tech looked wide-eyed at my other baby, the one who was floating across the computer screen, and announced “He has a really big head.” and “Wow, that is quite a large tummy” as she turned away from us and punched in more numbers for her report.

“We’ll need you to stay to speak with the doctor” she said cheerfully, as she ushered us back into the waiting room.

The doctor let Max staple the hospital orders together as I tried not to throw up.  My repeat C-section is scheduled for 12 noon this Friday.  “Max, do you have to go potty?” I whispered, as we walked out of the office.  I was trying to distract myself, because I knew that when the doctor’s words finally sunk in, I would be hysterical.  “You can’t have a VBAC.  I don’t feel good about it.  Safety…..skin-to-skin….I’m going on vacation this Saturday….we’ll talk to the anesthesiologist.”

I said OK.  I listened to her call the hospital and give them my name.  I called my husband and told him ten thousand thoughts in one rush of breath.  My potentially twelve pound baby (with the enormous head) kick-boxed my intestines as my body tensed up.  I stood up to go the bathroom and was sure that my water was breaking.  Every kick to my bladder felt like a contraction.  I imagined going into labor tonight, at the dinner table, with no doctor who I could trust, and no definite plan.

And then I called our doula.  I told her about the measurements, and the looks of grave concern that I got as I was spread out on the table at the doctor’s office.  I told her that I was afraid of another C-section, and afraid that I was being coerced into something that was more convenient for the doctors and more risky for me.

What I didn’t tell her, was that I am afraid of everything.  She talked me down from the ledge anyway.

“Your body knows how to do this” she said.

“Women birth big, sunny-side-up babies all the time.” she gently whispered.

“It’s your body, your baby, your choice.” she said slowly.  “You can always get a second opinion from a different doctor”.

The tightness in my chest became more like a friendly hug, and less like a death grip.  The world was still spinning, but more slowly.  The bellowing monologue that had been playing on repeat mode all afternoon became a tiny bit quieter.  Your baby will get stuck and his head will never move down and his heart rate will decel and you’ll have labored for hours for no reason and you’ll need a c-section anyway and you’ll be awake while they cut you open and take your insides out and maybe this time they’ll give you a Xanax first but not too many pain meds because last time it made you forget everything and then you couldn’t breastfeed and then you got post-partum depression and then your marriage had to carry the burden of you being afraid of everything and your sweet Max just cried and cried and cried and oh my god how much I love him and what if I die on the operating table and never get the chance to hold him again.  Last time was my fault, this was my fault, how could I ever forgive myself if I didn’t at least try or what if I do try and something happens and I tear all to hell or have to have a C-section anyway or….oh my god.  Oh my god, oh my god, I am so.so.scared.

Melissa, my doula, was still talking softly to me.  And as I forced myself to tune back in to her words, I heard her say “There was a reason why you had a C-section with Max.  He was breech.  You had to.  But it wasn’t because your body couldn’t birth your baby.  You don’t know that yet.  You can still give your body a chance.”

A chance.  The world is spinning out of control, and I am terrified, but I still have a chance.  I have a chance to birth this baby through a strong, capable, familiar body that knows how to free my tiny enormous son from the darkness that he is enveloped in.  I have a chance to trust my instincts.  To trust that I am strong enough to make a knowledgeable decision.  I have a chance to do this differently.  To say no to an intervention that I am doubting.  I have a chance to be guided by a birth teacher, a birth healer, a birth advocate….and I know that she will help me to turn inward to find the courage that I have lost track of.

I am terrified, but I am sick of being scared.  I am sick of needing to feel the hot, sticky leather of the old Volvo against my legs as I try to disappear into the backseat.  I am sick of feeling the panic rise up in my throat, sick of taking the easy way out because I am convinced that terror will beat down my door.  Bad things happen anyway.  You can’t prepare yourself for the shit in life by constantly running scared.  If it’s going to happen, it will happen anyway.  The rape, the cancer, the death and the pain, the divorce, the unfairness of it all.  I can’t stop it from happening by letting myself be paralyzed by fear.

This is my chance to change things.  I will imagine that my baby is six slippery pounds.  I will envision him slipping from my insides as I free him into the beauty of this world.  I will not give up my right to try for a VBAC, and I will not be terrified about what my doctor will think of me.  I will focus on the way that my husband’s hair curls slightly at his neckline, as I am bowled over by a contraction.  I will feel my four year old’s little hand in mine as his baby brother elbows his way into the world.  I will lie back against the scuffed leather of that old Volvo, and actually listen to the voices that gently call me out of the car.

“You’ll be ok, Kim”, they’ll say.   “You can do this, Kim” they’ll whisper.  “You are not alone, and you don’t need to be afraid” they’ll remind me.  And the fear will wash away.

When fear is gone, it leaves a huge hole for the courage to fill.  It’s a space that’s almost as big as my baby, I think.

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