Labor

I’ve been thinking lately about going into labor. I’m not going into labor, thankfully, but I have witnessed labor four times, though I don’t claim to be an expert on it having never gone through it myself, again, thankfully. And it’s not so much the long-term aspect of labor I’m thinking of, the hours upon hours of contractions and complaining and whatnot. I’m thinking more specifically about knowing that you’re about to go into labor, that at any moment the worst pain you’ve ever experienced could just begin as though flipping on a light switch. With the ability to estimate the day of arrival – or the start of the arrival – I figure it must feel like walking around with someone following you with a hammer poised over your head and at any second that person will begin hitting you with the hammer. And that pounding may stop in a few hours or it may not stop for 24, you just don’t know. Sometimes, too, the hammer person may give you a whack or two in the weeks leading up to the full-time whacking, just to make sure you’re paying attention.

I’m not sure I could live with that kind of stress. Raising the eventual kid is stressful enough, I don’t need to be scared of the very moment it all begins, whenever that may be. Is it starting now? Or … now? Just the thought of it makes me want to beat my own head with a hammer.