baby fever

The biological urge to reproduce has got to be one of the screwiest things about being alive. Why in the name of all that's holy do I want to do this again? Do I not remember the complications? The preeclampsia? The sudden "Hey, You're having a baby NOW" proclamation of the doctors? The tunnel vision that came over me with the three little words that will forever haunt my memories of April 29, 2005: Are You Shaved?

Who would have guessed that a grooming habit that I do for personal convenience, because I hate itching and sweating Down There every spring and summer, would turn into a potentially lifesaving procedure? The docs had an extra five minutes to work their magic, which was five extra minutes that they didn't have to run. And come to think of it- this is scary- just occurred to me as I sit here writing this- if there had not been a clear and very real danger of somebody's permanent harm/death, they would have been a tad more relaxed about it and not been running like they did.

I might be trying to process this childbirth for the rest of my life. It's like the hole left by a tooth, it's something I have this urge to pick at and I can't keep my thoughts out of it.

On most episodes of ER you see patients in crisis and the docs running around working their magic. Calm, unhurried, competence that gets rid of wasted emotion and movement. They focus on the crisis and not the hundred other things that must run through their heads. In the Zone.

Sometimes I think back and I can still see the naked relief on my surgeon's face, two days later, as she sat on the edge of my bed in her civies with her hair still wet from the morning's shower, telling me that she doesn't know why I walked into the clinic that morning but that she's glad that I did. She smiles, and I smile, and for the first time in weeks my mind is clear. The shock is starting to set in. It's only barely real to me that morning.

And now I am anxious to do this again? This has got to be part of the baby amnesia that mothers have. We forget the worst parts of delivery. We don't remember the fear, we forget the pain and terror. Even if there's no pain. We only remember the glorious moment after, when we see a child born. We become willing to do it again for the reward of sweet kissable baby head nestled under our chin.