A friend told me the other day that she thinks that stories about labor and pregnancy are a woman's version of war stories. Since some women also go to war, there are many out there who have actual war stories, but, still, I get where she's going on this one. My brother is an officer in the Navy and, ever since he was at the Naval Academy, old men have accosted him with their tales of battle. About ten years ago, we were on the subway in Washington DC, he was in uniform, and a 70-something man didn't really want us to get off to go to the Smithsonian, because he wasn't yet done talking about his time in Korea. My brother is very good about this sort of thing, patient and polite and full of yes sirs.
I would probably be a better person if I could follow his lead in my responses to the pregnancy war stories because, my lord, they sure do flood out there as soon as you appear to be pregnant. I'm not quite sure what people are trying to accomplish with these stories - scare me with their tales of 33 hours of labor? Make me realize that episiotomies are not so fabulous? Bond over the hours of pain we will soon have in common? Get me to stop bitching about my vain weight gain worries and hip pain by putting them in stark relief against the death of their second cousin's firstborn? Encourage me not to depend on my husband because he'll faint in the delivery room, just like their husbands did? Make me even more paranoid about ending up on bed rest for weeks, with nothing to do but watch 90210 reruns? The best I can manage is a half-hearted smile, and a mumble of something like "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," or "That's interesting about your, umm, tearing situation," before I walk away.
Whatever it is that they're trying to do, I wish they would stop. There's a reason Francis Ford Coppola never made a pregnancy version of Apocalypse Now - no one would watch it. I already have nightmares about losing the baby - though I also had one fabulous dream in which my baby, on its third day of life, slept all the way through the night and, worried, I called the doctor who said, "Oh, you're just lucky. You have a perfect baby." Alas, it was just a dream.
As for the pain of labor, I don't really see what these stories about hours of agony will accomplish. It's not a mystery that giving birth hurts. A lot. I will get through it, as women have for thousands of years. Instead of talking about the excrutiating pain, why don't women who've been there tell first-time pregnant ladies about the things that helped them get through? Even my husband (he's a firefighter - they're big fans of the war story genre) got in on the action the other day, talking about a call he'd gone on with a woman who was in labor, and how he almost got to perform an emergency episiotomy in the ambulance - once again, not helpful. I do not need to know quite that much detail about the leg and umbilical cord dangling out of her. At least I don't have to worry about him passing out.
I've got a doctor, I've got a labor class, I've got pregnancy books - so the rest of these graphic and gruesome stories, unless they've got a more positive spin, can be left unsaid. Keep it to yourself, people, and try not to scare the pregnant girl. My mother, ever the optimist, told me that labor wasn't so bad, and that she imagined the pain when I broke both the bones in my forearm, which had to wait for two days to be set in surgery during which I was throwing up from my allergy to the pain meds, was probably worse than labor. I have a friend who gave birth in her living room in a birthing tub, and raves about her experience. I know another who had a c-section, and says, if you have the chance, go for the it and avoid the whole labor thing. I'm neither a homebirth nor an elective surgery kind of girl, but I really appreciate both of these positive stories amidst the tales of excrutiating pain and endlessly long labor.
What about the rest of you? Any horror stories told my well-meaning little old ladies that sent you running? And, more importantly, any good labor or pregnancy stories?
