The big day is on the horizon

Welcome to Motherhood (Photo by Bianca de Blok)

The big day is on the horizon. Soon, little one "Number Two" will arrive on February 14, 2010.

It has been 14 years since I've done this pregnancy thing. Some things I have remembered from my first tour of duty, and some things I’ve forgotten. But my biggest fear is that I will not remember how to handle the most important part of pregnancy: labor.

I’m afraid I don’t know how to do it any more. Everything I had learned from childbirth classes years ago is absent from memory. Sure, I could take the childbirth classes at the hospital, but that isn't going to give me the physical strength to go through what could turn into an 18-hour painfest.

I’m ashamed to admit that my first labor is mostly a blur. I remember my water broke in the middle of the night, and going to the hospital in the dark morning hours. I remember crying from the pain until I was given Demerol. Within minutes, I was talking to my mother and ex-boyfriend’s mom cracking jokes and telling them that “the cabinets are bouncing.” A while later, I had an epidural. I was so numb that when the doctor said push, I was saying “push what?”

And here is my other labor fear: poop.

Maybe I was living in a cave last time I delivered, but the thought of pooping while pushing never crossed my mind. Nor had I heard of this happening to others. But now, as I read women's birth stories on the Web, I'm discovering that 75 percent of women poop while pushing during delivery. One woman lamented about how embarrassed she was that her husband saw her poop not only once, but twice. I've heard that the nurses clean it up quickly with a cloth. Many women are so busy trying to get that baby out that they never realize what they have done.

So, pooping during labor is going on my laundry list of labor and delivery fears. It’s right up there next to fear of having a long labor, fear of not getting enough sleep before going into labor, fear of needing a C-section.

I am an anxious person by nature. Always have been. If there is something to fear, then I am going to fear it. I tell myself now that there are a host of things to worry about, but I know once I have my baby these things will not matter, even if any of the above mentioned does happen.

Welcome to motherhood all over again.

(Photo by Bianca de Blok)