Oh, Baby

The first time it happened, I was sitting in the warm grass under the bright blue Maine sky. It was  a picture perfect summer day. A group of handsome young Coasties were playing volleyball, while others drank beer out of long neck bottles, flipped burgers, or wandered the beach. A young slender woman approached me, I didn’t know her and she didn’t know me, but no matter. Apparently my giant belly gave permission to break all boundaries and reveal her most painful memories. There was sciatica, and back labor and blood and broken blood vessels, it was 40 hours long, no actually it was more like 50 and so it went. The next time around it was a friend of a friend whose labor lasted for three days and three nights. And the pain. Oh the pain. There’s always so much talk of the pain.

I had known that people were always waiting in the shadows, wanting to share their worst ever labor stories, but for seven months I had avoided them. Once I let this girl in, once I let her interrupt my beautiful summer day, they all started finding me. The grocery store, the hair salon, my college friend’s apartment, the storytellers they lurked everywhere and suddenly they all wanted to share their tales of horror. Why do people tell these stories anyway? It’s not a cautionary tale. They know you are going through with this labor thing, horror story or not. I don’t think it’s really to scare you, at least I hope not. Maybe I was asking for it. Did my aura change? Was I suddenly inviting everyone’s stories? Was I subconsciously seeking them out?

I had this epiphany Saturday. Listening to people’s Orcas stories is like listening to labor stories. People tell them innocently enough, not knowing what detail I will hang on to. What piece of the story I will obsess about. It’s not their fault. When someone says they are purchasing a heart rate monitor for Orcas, I think "Oh my heart, should I be worried about my heart?"They don’t mean to go from telling about their experience to scaring the life out of me, but I allow that to happen. Maybe I bid it to happen.

I have decided that I have to stop listening to people’s Orcas stories. And, I have to stop asking for them as well. I’ve signed up for the race, so I’m already pregnant with Orcas, so to speak. I’m committed. There’s no turning back, no avoiding it. I have to go for it, move on and labor through. And just like we all feel when we are in our last few weeks of pregnancy, whether I’m ready or not, I need to just do it. I need the day to come already so I can create my own Orcas story. Hopefully it will be full of beauty and life to match the hard work and challenge, just like a real labor story should be.