9 Months of Pregnancy & 10 Hours of Labor

     I have been thinking a lot about the night of Julia's birth.  I am frustrated that a whole part of my life has been stripped away.  My pregnancy and Julia's birth are two things that I do not feel comfortable bringing up in casual conversation, and this is not fair.  Every mother has a birth story to tell, and so do I.  I want to be able to talk about all the good things that happened before she died.  The nine months of my pregnancy and the 10 hours I was in labor don't become null and void because my baby died.  I want to be able to start a sentence with, "When I was pregnant..." and not have it make everyone uncomfortable.  I feel lost so much of the time, and I think part of this is because 9 months of my life has been erased in most people's eyes.  

     I remember being in the hospital.  We had just been transferred from the birthing center to the labor and delivery floor.  We had quickly come to terms with the fact that our little girl was not going to follow our birthing plan.  At this point we had still not come up with a name.  I looked at Josh and said, "How about Julia Michal?"  We both just looked at each other and realized it was perfect.  It was soon after this that everything changed.  I like to believe that she was just waiting for a name.  Josh and I had originally not planned on naming her until we saw her.  What if we decided on Hannah but she came out looking like a Lily?  I am so glad we named her when we did, because neither of us would have been able to do so after her death.  

     I also remember when they initially checked me in the birthing center, shortly after we arrived at the hospital.  Elizabeth, my midwife, said I was only a centimeter dilated and not in active labor.  She mentioned sending me home to labor for a few hours before returning, and at that moment I wanted to strangle her.  I also saw Josh look around at the mountain of stuff we had brought, and his only question was, "Can we leave our stuff here?"  I remember thinking that there was not a chance in hell that I was leaving the hospital.  

      Since I was committed to using the birthing center and having a natural childbirth, I had a lot of anxiety about the pain.  But as soon as the contractions began coming regularly, I knew I would be able to do it without drugs.  Don't get me wrong, the pain was excruciating, but I was handling it.  I know now that any babies I have will be by a scheduled c-section, and I most likely will not ever go into labor again.  I feel a real loss when I think about the fact that I will never be able to give birth to my babies.  Instead of me pushing them out, they will be taken out of me, and that makes me sad.  In the whole scheme of things this is low on the totem pole, but it is one more thing that has changed forever.