My Identity

I'm not sure how to phrase this, or even start this post, without sounding like a cliche workout video or a feel-good movie. I've been thinking a lot about this over the past few days and I was watching a TV show where the mom feels invisible, like she disappeared or was swallowed up by her responsibilities and her wants became encompassed by duty.

This is a common theme in TV, and even movies. Someone in a position of power is overwhelmed by how much is expected of them. Gone are the days when you answered to yourself and if you did anything, you could fix it or take pride in it. Either way, it belonged to you. Once you get into a relationship with another human being, whether you're the king, employer, husband or mother, that position in that relationship gives you power and with that power comes great responsibility.

Being a mom means I constantly have to choose what's best for my kid. There exists a dichotomy in my brain of what I want to do and what the mom wants to do, like at 4:30 in the morning when my kid is nuzzling me for food. I want to push him away and go back to sleep, but the mom in me wants to feed him. I'm not illogical, so I feed him. Sometimes I want to take a bath and pretend I can't hear him crying outside the bathroom door, or my husband frantically trying to calm him down, but I'm a mom, so I open the door and I'm a wife so I towel off and entertain my son so my husband stops feeling like a failure.

What I want to do is lock my kid in his bedroom with all his toys and a canister of snacks and play a video game. I want to work on crocheting a blanket, or sewing his stocking, or even cooking something. I want to go for a run or organize the laundry or vacuum, any number of things I'd like to do but I have a baby clinging to my legs, torso, or breast and I can't.

It would be easy, and it is easy, to blame the people in my life for the things that have gone wrong. I would like to blame my husband for getting me pregnant so I couldn't go to school. I'd like to blame my baby for making me gain 50 lbs and preventing me from exercising, sleeping, or shaving. I'd like to blame everyone for my problems because it's easier than admitting they're not my problems, they're my consequences for having responsibilities.

In the end, I weigh 187.5 lbs, probably about 50 lbs more than I need to weigh. I have dyed red hair that looks pretty awful, but my hair also looks thicker. I can't work on my writing because my baby growing and developing mentally and physically is more important than any story I have to tell. I can't clean my house because my baby has SEVERE separation anxiety. I don't look good in my clothes, nor do I have a lot that fit my body anymore.

And that's something I have to live with. I'd rather eat sugar than give it up because it's my 'smoking' or 'drinking', the one thing I have left to relax me. I can't sleep when I want to do what I want when I want to, and sometimes I play on my phone for an hour instead of doing the dishes when he's taking a nap because I'm selfish. And maybe that isn't ok, but it's me and my coping. I have a lot of bad things that I want to change, a lot of me that I want to get rid of.

Everyone says to live in the moment, treasure the present, don't let a minute pass you by. I think living in the moment means living with yourself, as you are, in that moment. So, for now, I'm an overweight ugly girl. That's me. Not in a self-pity way, just a that's how it is way. I don't get to do what I want, and that's hard. But I'm a mom. It'd be like a firefighter deciding they didn't want to help put out a forest fire and skipping out to get ice cream or work out. Being a mom is my job, it's something I signed up for when I had sex. My job as a mom means I put him first, even if and especially when it's inconvenient for me. My job as a wife means I clean up when I don't want to, scratch backs when I REALLY don't want to, and listen to him ramble about politics when the American people could elect a rabbit for President and I'd be hard pressed to care. I don't care about Israeli oil stocks... not my cup of tea, not my forte, not how I choose to idle away the hours.

I'm a mom because that's my job. I'm a wife because that's my job. I get compensated for my time. 'Get a job in your passion and you'll never work a day in your life!', except sometimes it is work. Sometimes you force yourself to paint that picture or write that story because that's what you're getting paid to do. Maybe you want to go home for the holidays but you have to go to Rome to interview a Catholic bishop. Maybe you're filming a great show, but the guest keeps cracking horrible jokes in between takes. Maybe you have to mix 400 gallons of a specific color of paint for your mural, but the color can only be achieved in pint or quart batches. Every job is a job sometimes so even though I love my husband and I love my baby and most of the time, my work is enjoyable, there are times when it's not, especially when I'm sick or hungry or tired, and I think it's ok to admit that building a family is work and I don't enjoy it. My family has become my group of coworkers that I complain to about everything because my Mom and Dad have done the same job before and my sisters are 'looking into the field'.

I am not defined by my jobs, but by my accomplishments, and I have accomplished being a mom and a wife. I cook, clean, and worry, I put them before myself. I am talented in the art of 'being selfless' especially when being selfish would be so much easier... when not fixing an argument would be easier/100% justified in my eyes.

My identity is everything that I am, jobs included, the sum total of my experiences and everything that makes me unique and different. So, while I'm a rape victim, I'm also a writer and a mom and a wife. I'm a sometimes-painter and a beader, attempted crocheter and a cook. I have my Bachelor's degree and I know how to change a tire and I've almost memorized how to change my own oil. I'm my own superhero because I put the needs of the important above my own wants. So maybe it'll take me forever to finish Skyrim or SWTOR (sorry babe). Actually, it probably will take me forever because I want to go to diesel mechanic school... but that just means I'm putting my job first as a career woman with the end goal being kids that make good decisions and a husband I can stand being around for 50-60 years. It's going to take a long time and I'm going to change my personality along with my goals and skill set, but it's all part of my identity, past, present, and future.

Fighting Alone

I'm tired.

I wake up tired and stay up all night, too paranoid to go to sleep. I rest on my sword, weary of battle but eager to live. I nap throughout the day, pulling my eyelids from one nightmare to the next and weaving my day with strands of memory from happier times, only slightly poisoned with the fallout of the most recent fight.

Love?

I do not know love, haven't been sure of anything like this feeling since my ex. I feel no butterflies, no spark, no tingles in the spine that signify excitement when my husband is near. I look on him as a puppy-bomb: cute and innocent, yet consistently in danger of destroying himself and others with his ineptitude. I play my husband above all others in terms of the importance of his needs and I consider that to be the closest emotion to love I can feel and even that bears a more logical stamp than emotional.

I'm tired.

There are political posts every day about grand schemes that will not affect me. There are bombs in far-off countries and cries of war, but both sides only want to see themselves succeed at the expense of the other. We fight a civil war that has long since lost all civility. The newspapers are filled with gossip about celebrities and terrorists with a small paragraph dedicated to that one good thing two cities over, always to someone else, always an idea you almost thought of, always for a cause you placed on the back-burner of your mind in terms of importance.

Love?

There is no love. Even those who claim it as a motto do not recognize the emotion of love, only exquisite tolerance and acceptance, only if you shout it from the rooftops can you feel this emotion. Gone are the quiet looks across a fireplace, where you knew your parents loved each other without hearing cries of passion through the walls, without gaudy flower arrangements. When was the last time you viewed love as a sacrifice? Not a grand one, but a small one, an act of such significance it passed you by? My Dad found a huckleberry-flavored chocolate at the store one day and brought it home to my Mom. She thought it tasted good and for 3 years afterwards, he would buy her 5-6 whenever he went to the store, in such quantities that she tired of the taste and pawned them off on her children. She never said anything to him. He remembered her. That is love. She guarded his feelings despite the inconvenience to herself. That is love. Where is that love today?

I'm tired.

My mouth is open and words come out, just words, an opinion based on logical observations about the world. Words are javelins hurled at my heart, my mouth, my feet, removing my voice for commenting on theirs. Discounted, cast aside, I do not agree so I am not important, probably crazy. My reasons are not valid, my logical reasons I have thought about. I am no sheep. I follow no 1 theory or politician completely. And yet, because I disagree, I am an idiot. I sleep every night with blood on my brain, so thick it boils around my ears from the pressure, a thin collection of wires and neurons exposed, ripped apart when I wracked my brain for the logic of their argument.

Love?

Jessica Day is always looking for, and never finding, love. She wants untempered passion, but a mature man who has his life together. She will never find him. The mark of a man (and a woman) is the ability to delay gratification, to restrain your base impulses, to suck it up and do things you don't want to do. An adult, fully functioning, goes to work at a usually thankless job, but recognizes it will lead to better things: they stay with their relationship because they were mature enough to pick a well-rounded, decent person based off maturity and not breasts, knowing the relationship will be hard: they sometimes keep their mouth shut and sometimes wear their heart on their sleeve, always in full control of themselves if not their circumstances. Even Jesus Christ, the Maker of the world, could not control His people, but He always controlled Himself.

I'm tired.

I've never gone so long without running away. I'm tired of standing in one place, everything in me quivering to bolt, every instinct trained on the next horizon. Times get rough and I want to go. Why stick around to ruin everyone's life? Would it not be better if we were apart, no longer together, no longer speaking? Couldn't we move on and be an idea, a memory, an imprint of a ring? How much would you hate me? I fight for the truth and am rejected. I fight for logic and am shut down. I fight for love, for acceptance, to make things better, and all my efforts are in vain. Surely, it is not too much to brush your teeth every day, regardless of exhaustion. Surely I am not remiss in requesting basic hygiene. If I am so wrong, what makes you so right? And why do you hate me for being right? Am I not allowed the same outrage? Would you prefer a meek lamb, softly bleating and prancing after you, bell ringing merrily as I follow your every footstep, a mindless animal you can consume and discard? Does logic, the truth, mean nothing in this society?

Love?

I don't know if I feel it, or if I suppressed it, or what is supposed to happen to me now. How can I talk to him, how can I open up that I feel no love for him and he is not unique? How can I explain that I don't love my family, friends, husband, or child? I don't have the movie romance, I have a semblance of logical reasons to keep them around, small entries of joy, a yellow highlighter on the calendar of my life, muscle memory of a smile. I crash, I bend, I freeze, I do everything except love. So I am a worthless automaton and what has made me this way? And why is it so horrible, so inconceivable, so monstrous, to allow plain facts to dictate action and reaction? Are the Vulcans so despised? Maybe I just don't get excited... but what can I do to excite myself, much less allow others to inspire that same reaction in me.


I don't get excited anymore. Because I feel no rush of adrenaline when meeting him, no powerful wave, I lack ingredients to make myself emotions. I don't like excitement because it prevents me from controlling myself and surprises are rarely in my favor. I cannot be caught off-guard. How can it be that I have haunted the alleys of my mind for so long without recognizing my own ghost? Where is the justice, the friendly hand, the pounding of blood that apparently makes for such a varied and rich life? Did I lose it, somewhere, when he left? Am I as broken as the sister I pity, ruined by a man, unable to feel excitement? Is this realization going to do anything except depress me?

So many questions... and only Tuesday to figure them out.

Train of Thought Response

New Girl is one of the shows that got me through my pregnancy. It felt like it was me, Zooey, and the gang of guys against the rest of my problems, particularly my husband. I felt like he was never there for me. Watching rom coms or people in love kind of validated the romance that didn’t exist between us, highlighted his problems and why he wasn’t a good husband. I felt validated, like there was a handful of women in romantic comedies, in more ridiculous situations than mine, who understood and knew what was happening. I looked forward to those nights and hated them at the same time, the bitterness, the slow realization that whatever happened, whatever I did, it wouldn’t change who I was married to and all their problems were solved at the end of the 2 hours while mine were still there, still hanging on, 2 years later. I wanted to wrap my life up into a Hollywood plastic wrap, brand it with the name of the game, put a Warner Bros. logo or whatever in front of the title card, shorten my life, my problems, hilariously. I would only show the good parts, the parts that would make people laugh. I’d put some funny music so people would know what was funny… my ex crying when I tried to break up with him, then proposing. That would be funny with a laugh track. People should laugh when something ridiculous like that happens. They’d laugh when my stalker chased me down a mountain, talking about ghosts who looked like fur trappers and evil spirits stalking the old fort that was only put there a few decades ago, not long enough to gather any really scary ghosts, the kind that hate technology with a passion only rivaled by your grandma. It’d be funny to see me marrying a guy I only just met. There’d be a montage of me telling people on my mission that I was never going to get married, then a montage of them telling me that I was, within a year even. Then it’d cut to my wedding day. It’d skip over the awkward feelings between my husband and me, the weird first date that wasn’t a date, the jealousy, the indifference, the way he’d ignore me for his friends, the way he’d physically use me. It’d show a handful of arguments where either one of us could be right, just to keep the bias. There’d be a nice shot of both of us on the therapist’s couch, afraid to touch each other and ourselves, afraid to reach out and make a connection with anything, even the open and empty chasm within ourselves. Our kids would grow up, he’d say he was sorry, I’d trip over something and be clutzy and cute, a little odd, more like Zooey in New Girl and he’d be my Nick Miller, this grumpy guy who wouldn’t grow up. I don’t want to be Jess though… I don’t want to stray away from the path of adulthood. I want the coasters and the leather chair, the fireplace and Japanese bidet. I want to wake up in the morning to the smell of a clean house. I want to be successful by myself and keep the mistakes I made along the way to a minimum, a short clip of funny anecdotes I can share on a first date, or mention the burn mark on the wall as that one funny time I got ticked at a corporate sponsor and threw a scented candle at a clock that now sits in storage, covered in Tropical Sunrise. He’d laugh because he wasn’t there to feel the angry tension that led up to it and the tears afterward. After all, I looked ridiculous. Instead of perfecting myself, I got an angry husband and a grabby baby, a baby who won’t let me be alone. He’s a baby who needs constant reassurance, just like his father. I spend my energy being there for him and cleaning, because that’s what his mom wants and maybe I want it too. I want a clean house with book shelves, a house that looks put together. I want to wake up in the morning with a regular smell, not the odor of the last 2 days of sweat stuck to me… and it’s not even mine. I want time to shave, to go to work, to knit, to do something other than watch Netflix because I can’t move otherwise the baby will wake up and he needs a nap in order to function, even if he doesn’t think so. I wanted… my life to be more worldly because at least the world comes with a manual. At least the world tells you how to achieve success, with this job and that money and this purchase and that degree of freedom… it’s great. Honestly. I looked forward to a life dictated by the world. Now I struggle to find the spiritual meaning in a poopy diaper that the baby spent all night in, the yellow streaks on the thighs, my night shirt and sheets that I have to change… I have to find God in all of this, in the grabby baby, the inattentive husband who would never cheat on me with anything less alive than a laptop or his phone… sucked in by facts and figures and Europe. He sleeps with technology, with Redwall, with British voices telling stories while I whisper good night to myself and hold myself close for a minute, trying to remember I mean something to him and to me.

Mom?

I still don't feel like a mom. I wake up to my kid breastfeeding, I fall asleep with him in my arms, I bathe him and kiss him and love him. I don't feel like a mom.

Maybe there's some switch or something that gets pulled so I don't feel like I'm just babysitting someone's kid until they come back. I'm terrified to tell people they can't hold my child because... what if they're his real parents? People hug him and play with him and I... uneasily hold him. I don't like being in public. I want to feel like his mother, like I know what's going on and how to parent him and when I should transfer him to a crib but there's no manual. I can't tell people what it's like to be a mom because I still don't know. I love this little boy so much, but I feel that, at any moment, someone will come to take him away.

That could be a reason so many mothers-in-law don't get along with their sons' wives; they're paranoid about finally getting cut out of their life, like this is the one person they spent their child's life hating and avoiding and waiting for. It's going to be hard to let him go when he means so much to me. When I bathed him and worried about what color his poop was and got peed on at all hours of the night. I cut his nails and gave him carrots and I can't imagine how it's going to feel when she finally marries him.

For now, I have a friend who comes over most days. We write together and I imagine I'm going to put that writing up here. I need to practice typing more... I think my typing speed is slowing down and my coherence is dropping. Hopefully this will help me exercise and stretch my writing muscles. It's been too long and I think I've been too complacent and lazy.

Weird Dynamic

I have a weird dynamic with my husband.

It's nowhere near normal as far as I can tell, comparing it with other couples I know. He's really emotionally needy, like a kid who wasn't hugged enough or a kicked puppy. He needs constant reassurance about himself, his abilities, who he is. I thought it was because of his parents, but apparently his dad is the same way so maybe it's genetics.

Although it sometimes bothers me, it's never been a huge deal or a deal-breaker. I try to explain it to people and they comment on how they don't know how I deal with him. I can't find the right words. I like being the one he can physically and emotionally depend on. I like being the strong, sure, stable one in the relationship. I like giving. He's more of a taker. And I'm fine with that.

Sometimes my 50% is his 100%. Sometimes it's 10%. Our relationship works and it's awesome because we balance each other. I'm super down-to-earth and he's got his head so far up in the clouds, he can't see me most of the time. Most of the time, it's his world spinning out of control and I have to stabilize it. He's not someone I can lean on 100% of the time. That's ok. I like the pressure to be emotionally stable and to think things through so I'm right 99.9% of the time. He pushes me to be better. And when I can't take it anymore, when I'm on the cusp of crash, he's there for me. More than there, he cups me in his hands and instantly makes the bad things go away, whether it's me pushing out a baby or doubting my own skills as a writer/mother.

It's not a perfect relationship because those don't exist, and we fight more than every successful couple I know. I'm a giver, he's a taker. He's a dreamer, I'm a realist. He's an extrovert, I'm an introvert. We're different, but it works because one of us is always fighting for the other. When crap hits the fan, one of us always pulls the other out of the way. We work because we love each other and even though we threaten divorce and murder, we don't mean it. We're both aggressive, loud, opinionated, pushy, and stubborn people; but he needs someone to temper his temper and I need someone who fights back.

I can count on him to spoil me like a princess whether we have the money or not. I can count on him to hold me when I'm sick or sad. I can count on him to do whatever I ask him with varying levels of complaining. I can count on him to dream big to give me exactly what I want and, often times, way more than I dare ask for. I can count on him to do the scary stuff so I don't have to. I can count on him to make great friends so I don't have to be afraid of people. I can count on him to do whatever needs to be done so I'm happy. I can count on him to focus on granting my every wish, even if it means he doesn't sleep for two days. I can count on him to hold up my dreams when I get too depressed to do it. I can count on him to listen to me and try to do better. I can count on him to become a better person. I can count on him to love me. I can count on him to stay faithful. I can count on him.

It bugs me sometimes to always be teaching him how to be a father. I know I'm the more stable one and the more developed. I also know I'll always be the bad guy to our kids. I know I'm more mature. I also know I need him. Even though it's frustrating to be an adult and I complain to people about him sometimes, I know that what we have works and it will continue to work because I can count on him to give 100% when I can't. It's not often, and people can see that (and judge him for it). The only time I'll have problems is when he can't. If neither one of us can support the other, then we'll have problems, but through finals, pregnancy, and now a kid, we've only failed each other a handful of times and even though we're a LOT like Beauty and the Beast, we never stop caring about each other, even if we don't have a lot in common besides Harry Potter.

Baby/Graphic Birth Story: The Real Deal

I don't know if my birth story will help anyone and I don't expect anyone to get inspired by it. I don't think I did anything incredible by doing what I did, but here's my story for those of you who want to read it. If you're not pregnant/into graphic detail, this is not for you. Stop reading now. Seriously, you'll get grossed out.

I had the worst pregnancy. I didn't get hospitalized, but I should have. I'd thrown up so often that it was dark orange and turning black. My urine did the same thing. It was pretty much the hardest thing I've ever had to do ever and it made me 100% comfortable with my body. Crazy as it sounds, with the constant doctors appointments and poking and prodding and getting to know myself again as I rapidly expanded... I honestly don't care who sees what anymore. The only reason I cover up now is because I don't want to make OTHER people uncomfortable. 

So after this terrible pregnancy, about a week before I gave birth, my mucus plug started coming out. For those of you who haven't read everything on the subject yet, it's basically a chunk of mucus that plugs up your uterus so bacteria can't get to the baby and the baby can't come out. At first, it was just thick vaginal discharge with some grey in it. I freaked out, of course, but since there weren't horrifying contractions, I didn't think anything of it. I'd had contractions a few times before (3x) and it happened pretty early in the pregnancy. They made me want to stab a knife through my back just to make the pain go away. I didn't have that yet.

On Thanksgiving, I started cramping every few hours. It felt like period cramps, but I was still able to cook and clean and talk through them, so I didn't think anything of it. The next day was Black Friday and I lost even MORE of the mucus plug; this time it was tinged with red so I figured it was going to happen in the next few days. I wasn't overly worried. I had been cramping on and off, but everyone and everything online, in the books, and with people I'd talked to said that kind of stuff didn't mean squat since you could have cramps 5 minutes apart for 3 hours and still not be in 'full swing'. We kept walking. I had a timer on my phone and my Kindle to time my contractions so I could let my Mom know when she could drive the 6 or so hours to come up. My husband and I would walk for a few minutes, then I'd have to stop for the cramps. It was hard to talk, but I  could still do it. I felt like I had to call my Mom, though, so I did and let her know things were probably going to go down soon so she should come up here, but not worry about rushing since it might not happen tonight. She left at 6:30 and got to the hospital at 10:30.We met some friends of ours while shopping and they said, 'When's the baby coming?' and we said, 'Any day now!... Ha ha... irony...

After Walmart, we came home and I died in bed. My husband heated up some corn bags (like rice bags) for my back since it was killing me. I napped on and off for a few hours and forced myself to drink water. I couldn't eat though. I didn't really want anything. I told my husband that I could wait until midnight (since my Dad kept bugging me to hold off until then to make sure I got the extra 1/2 night at the hospital without getting charged extra) and to put the stuff in the car. By now, it still hadn't hit that I was in labor.

About 9:30, it becomes unbearable: the contractions are one on top of the other and getting more intense. Think like when you're kissing a guy and the motions are the same but suddenly the kiss becomes intense. Like that. I'd lost a bigger chunk of my mucus plug (definitely had red) and I could barely grunt through the pain. I definitely wasn't trying to talk since all my energy was on putting emotional pressure on the pain to try and soothe it (sounds weird, but labor is weird).

I made it to 10:00, then told my husband I couldn't take it anymore. We drove to the hospital and I tried shifting positions about 300 times to try finding comfort. The entire 5 minute drive (my heart goes out to those poor women with 2-3 hours to go) I was worried about them turning us away. My daily fare had consisted of watching the same 10 birth/labor videos on YouTube and reading horror stories on my pregnancy app of women in misery who hadn't dilated enough to be admitted to the hospital.

A week before, I had measured at 2 cm dilated, which means I had 8 to go. Not a big deal since you can stay there for months before anything happens. 3 days before, my midwife couldn't find my cervix (the opening is how you measure it) and decided I was too high. Then she left for 4 days to visit her family for the holidays. I figured it was fine. Fast forward to the present day when we pull up to the dark hospital. We walk inside to an empty lobby and see nobody in the office. There's a phone, but I'm doubled over in pain so my poor husband (who has 0 experience with any of this being the first of his friends to have a kid, the youngest in his family, and having no small children around him growing up) has to call the nurses station and explain to them his wife was in pain. They let us in, gave us a gown, and told us to go change in another room for examination. In the middle of a contraction, I asked him to help me get my leggings off.

SPLASH!

My water broke. Everywhere. All over the floor, me, my husband, the walls... it was a mess. I put the hospital gown on and scrambled onto the bed, still leaking. The nurse came in and I immediately pointed it out so she didn't slip on it. She just shrugged and told me that meant I wasn't going anywhere so I could now get checked into a birthing suite. First, however, I had to get there. I waddled through the empty halls with a giant diaper clutched around me; my hands holding the front and hers in the back. Very humbling. Also helped get rid of any shame I felt. Period pain is still happening through all of this. We get to the suite and they stick a needle in me. I tell them I don't want any needles since it will keep me from moving very much and I want mobility through different positions. They don't listen since it's easier for them to put it in an early laboring woman than a later laboring female Wolverine. My husband is pressing on my back and reassuring me. I'm in a lot of pain and it's getting worse all the time. My Mom comes in and starts pushing. Too scared to ask for anything, I just agree to everything they say. Sure, I'll try lying down. Sure, bring in the birthing ball. Sure, leave me alone. I tried the birthing ball and almost slip off since I'm still leaking. Just imagine constant pain and leaking even when I don't bring it up.

11:00 hits and everyone is telling me to breathe low and slow. The pain isn't cooperating and my body is ripping itself apart. I forget anything about everything and just try to hold onto my sanity. My dignity disappears when I beg my husband to ask the nurses for an epidural. He stands firm on no medication because the last instructions I gave him were to keep me from medication. Past me is a crazy person who didn't understand labor and this is different. You wouldn't deny someone food because they thought they could fast for 3 days... so why deny me medication when I had no idea what was going to happen? My Mom finally convinces him to ask a nurse who flips me over and checks my dilation. 8 cm. Too far along for an epidural. They give me a shot of something mild... like liquid baby aspirin and say they'll bump it up if I need it. If I had any brain power leftover, I'd be wishing they all burst into flames. I can't summon the strength to hate them. I'm a destroyed shell of a person, begging for relief. I'm a panicking horse and my husband is the only person I trust. He strokes my face and hair, telling me it's going to be fine. He breathes with me.

Pretty sure I couldn't have done it without him. The pain was so intense I thought I was going to die. Still not 100% sure I would have lived if he hadn't been there even though nothing went wrong.

It's almost go time. They check again at midnight and I'm 10 cm. Time to start pushing. I've been pushing since the pain got super bad. They tell me it's bad for me, but I'm past the point of caring. I no longer exist outside of a limp collection of consciousness. I want it to be over and whatever will make it over faster is better. They put me on my back so the doctor can see. I'm too tired to protest, my Mom is too scared, and my husband has no idea what's going on.

Screw that. Never give birth on your back. They say it's because it's convenient for the doctor. I'm sorry, I forgot the DOCTOR was the one pushing against gravity and expelling a child the size of a bowling ball through his pelvis! Seriously... it's never happening that way again.

So I'm on my back and they put an oxygen mask on me. I have no other way of fighting the pain and if I pass out, maybe it won't hurt. They tell me to rest between pushes. I push the entire time. It feels like taking a huge dump, casting out a turd after staying at your in-law's for a few days. My Mom tells me she can see the head. My husband tells me to keep pushing. The doctor and nurses tell me I'm doing a great job.

I literally don't care. They could tell me the baby's head looked like a giant tortilla or turtle and it wouldn't matter at this point. He could be backwards; I'm beyond caring. I am a cloud held together by the need to push. They say they can see the head. Someone says something about hair. Apparently it's almost over. I push. They scream. The baby's out.

I'm relieved, ready to take a nap. They put the baby in my arms, screaming, but not super loud. It's not annoying... like a lamb. I can't hold him too close because he's still connected by the umbilical cord. I want to sleep. For all I know, I just passed a lump of gold for the government and my reward is this warm baby. He wasn't slimy at all and there was no vernix (waterproof organic lotion your body puts on them to protect against the outside world). My husband cut the cord and they wrapped me up. My Mom is crying, my husband is... somewhere in the room. They tell me to nurse him. I stick him against my breast and he fusses before finally taking hold. There are pictures. They tell me he pooped right out of the shoot. It's 12:54, and I'm finally a Mom.