“The only Zen you’ll find on mountaintops is the Zen you bring up there.” – Robert M. Pirsig

36 Weeks

We’re back at the hospital. It’s my obstetrician appointment. I could swear the nurses run the show around here and the docs are merely used to ‘sign’ them off. I get my anti-D injection in the butt… and that lovely, yet controversial, GBS swab. With that pleasant send off, I’m glad I won’t be returning back here until the real event. Over the last few weeks I’ve been having all my check-ups at my local midwifery clinic. The midwife that is now looking after me is extremely confident, strong in her views, and has a wickedly dry sense of humour that puts me at ease. I could see how she could easily be misunderstood (not that I think she’d care anyway). I also have a sweet student midwife who will follow me all the way through from now on.

At my first visit at the clinic a few weeks back, one of the initial questions she asked me was “so… birth plan?” I could feel this was a loaded question. I already had my response rehearsed and it went exactly like this… “I don’t have a birth plan. I just want a healthy baby. I trust that you are the professionals…” and that “no, I will not be attending antenatal classes”. I could see the joy on her face with each word that fell from my mouth. I was waiting for the streamers to descend from the ceiling. I think she likes me. Little did she, nor the rest of the world know, that of course I have a birth plan. OK, it had nothing to do with Zen candles or music, but I did have the whole scenario planned out in my head for months now. I am a research enthusiast, remember. I read all about the drugs, the aids, interventions and outcomes… and technically I’ve already given birth before, even though I’m sure it will be rather different this time.

Everything I read, including those ‘birth stories’ found in my parenting magazine subscription, all spoke of the wonders of natural childbirth. At first, I tried to figure out what the big obsession was with it? But the more I read, the more I become seduced by the idea. How Zen. How empowering. How rewarding. How inspiring. How strong. How fulfilling. How admirable.  I am woman… hear me roar! I’m built for this. This is my biological design. I will fulfil it. If you want something enough, you’ll get it. I have this in the bag… watch me. (Please note: time travelling stinky wet fish face slap should be due about now, but this comes later). Even though I know what I want and have an expectation of how things will play out, I find myself constantly in two minds. In reality, I don’t trust my body. It’s failed me before and I have no doubt that it may fail me again. I need some of this ‘woman power’ and ‘Zen’ they all keep talking about.

Wait, does it come in tablet form?

During this time, the nurse also checks the position of little man. Oh. My. What a sensation. Ok, breathe in and hold. I didn’t know you could literally grab the baby through your skin… Well at least I now know that it’s a bum and head that keeps poking through my stomach. Baby is transverse, but she assures that there is plenty of time for him to move.

My regular check-ups continue with the same ritual; blood pressure, baby heart rate and FMF (which is still the most excruciatingly anxious minutes waiting for the monitor to find that rhythmic thudding), fundal height measured, position assessed and I’m weighed.

I laugh hysterically at every ‘weigh-in’. I’m so hungry all the time that hubby has actually resorted to making extras at dinner time to appease the need for my double dinner intake. I don’t know why everyone warned me about your decreased appetite during the third trimester. My hunger is insatiable! So much for only needing an extra glass of milk a day for additional calories… I must be growing an army in there. I’ve eaten my way to a 20kg surplus. That’s got to be all baby, right?! Maybe I should save the wet fish face slapping for another time. There’s a high chance I might actually eat it.

With that said, I’m hungry. Maybe I’ll find that Zen at the back of the fridge somewhere.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

36 Weeks

“I came to you in weakness and fear…”
1 Corinthians 2:3

One of my favourite verses in the Bible doesn’t speak of love or promise, but of weakness and fear. No, it’s not morbid. It’s life. It’s funny how we always seem to focus on promises and prosperity without even entertaining the idea of weakness and fear. They’re ‘dirty’ words. I could describe my life over the last 12 months perfectly as weakness and fear. We are well acquainted. I literally personify weakness and fear. Over the last year, l’ve been living with it. Day in, day out. Weakness and fear can be crippling. They’re painful…

I have filled life with distractions of trivial things to muffle the deafening chatter and constant drag of weakness and fear… until I’m abruptly reminded again of the very mercies we live by each day. Sometimes life slaps us in the face to assure us that we’re not promised anything, and that when weakness and fear speaks, they are not to be ignored. My friend lost her baby… their son. It’s not my story to tell, but I’m peeled back to the shell that I’ve been trying to cover and fill with busyness… and all I can do is cry. I cry for the pain that no words will remove, for the questions no mere mortal can answer, for these mysteries of life that continue to haunt the least deserving, for the fact that ‘life’ can happen to any of us… but mostly, I cry for the weakness and fear they too will now have to endure. My friends, who have a faith and a strength that I will always admire… a resilience like I’ve never witnessed… a trust without borders. If only I was half the person…

I realise how still very broken I am… and weakness and fear squeezes me even tighter. I buy flowers and walk it to their hospital room. It’s the room directly next to where Sienna was birthed a whole year ago. I can’t do this. I hand the flowers to the nurse who tells me to take them in myself. I can’t. I can’t go any further. I leave as swiftly as I arrived. I just want to disappear and make everything go away. Life truly has moments that completely suck. That leaves us dry and void. I’ve got absolutely nothing to offer, but more sorrow and a flaunting growing belly. It’s not fair.

Weakness and fear can be crippling. They’re painful… but more than that, they can be incomparable teachers. What can weakness and fear teach us? Faith doesn’t rest on the wisdoms of man, but on the power of our Creator… on ‘the universe’,  on the ‘higher power’, or whatever else you’d like to refer to as God. Life is made up of beautiful contradictions; “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted”…”when I am weak then I am strong”. In weakness we find our true strength… in fear we find our true voice.

Weakness and fear are merely tools, not a destination. They are to be used and discarded. They do not control us, but guide us. Don’t ignore them, don’t drown them, don’t bury them in busyness. Wear weakness and fear on your sleeve. Look it in the eye and acknowledge it. Stop pretending it doesn’t exist and grab that sucker by the horns. Learn your lesson, then here’s the hard bit… let it go.

I think maybe I’m still learning…

“… Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander and my faith will be made stronger…”