For most of this pregnancy, I have found that for the most part, its a tough job, and its hard to not focus on how hard it really can be, especially when you’re just trying to work an everyday 12 job where your blood pressure on a good day is well above average. .. Pregnancy really is a self involved job. Its hard to not be superbly consumed with your own aches and pains, your own personal fails and little victories in a day to get you through another day to a another month to the day you get to finally meet the little piece of joy that has been making life so difficult for the past nine months.
However, driving home last night from work, aching, and paining over the idea of having to go back to another 12 hour shift in a day or two, where i would again obviously end up in so much pain that even sitting wouldn’t fix ...i started to see the beauty that is pregnancy. Pregnancy, for the pregnant woman, isn’t , DEFINATELY isn’t always beautiful. Its uncomfortable, its strenuous, and it can almost always be exhausting sharing your body with someone else 24/7. However, pregnancy is one of those miraculous things in life that brings out the very, very best in humanity, in the people and the world around you. While you may be suffering through your day, someone somewhere is watching you smiling, thinking about how absolutely wonderful it is that you are pregnant, not like your mom, but like strangers, people who don’t even know you, or who barely know you, are thoroughly and entirely happy and excited for you. Its a rare and wonderful thing to have people who don’t know you feel joy for you. That in itself is what got me through the drive home last night, because when i looked back on my day, there were so many leniencies that were handed my way because of the softness people have for a woman growing a baby in her belly. Other nurses were asking what else they could do to make my day easier, they were doing lifts for me, offering to give me the first break and bending over backwards to make sure that when my stress levels were getting really high, they were at least there to pat me on the back and tell me that they knew how much harder those days can be when you’re pregnant on top of it all. Again, the warmth another woman can give to a pregnant woman, is truly a gift.
My patients were excited to meet me, not because i could give them morphine and tell them what was going on in their broken bodies, but because my belly was obviously in the way of their assessments and that meant they could ask me the exciting question of when the baby was going to be a part of the world we all live in. They were sympathetic to the fact that I was on my feet for 12 hours, and they were almost as excited for the clock to hit 7pm as I was so i could go home and relax after a long LONG day. Patients that don’t appreciate what a nurse does in her job in a day even the really obnoxious ones, can appreciate the effort that must go into a day like that when you’re pregnant. And they show it by not being jerks, and by saying the thank yous that are often forgotten when you’re sick in the hospital. And this, is something that I can definitely be grateful to the little papaya in my belly for.
People open doors, and wait for you to waddle up to get there, the girl at the coffee shop asks if you’re okay when sh e sees you wince in pain from sciatica, and the people around you start creating games about your birth and the names for your baby, because to them, this pregnancy is beautiful and amazing and honestly exciting. And if that isn’t enough to make you appreciate pregnancy then nothing is. To be honest, I have found that while, yes, feeling the baby moving around in my belly has been pretty surreal and humbling to the magic that is going on in there, the most moved Ive been by my pregnancy is by the reaction and love from complete strangers around me simply because I am pregnant. Seeing that the human race , no matter how bad days can get, can get behind the awesomeness that is a woman literally growing another human inside her, is really the most gratifying part of pregnancy for me. I love seeing the good in people come out, which is why I have always loved the hospital, sick people are always the ones that get their realities in line, appreciate life for what it is, and appreciate the help they get from everyone in every way. The same is said for pregnancy, no matter how crazy your day is, seeing a pregnant woman walking across a parking lot really levels you out, it brings you back to basics, even though your car got scratched in a parking lot, people can GROW babies inside them. The bigger picture hits you in the face again.
I told jake the other night that I saw a lady and her husband smiling and pointing out my belly at the restaurant we were at and Jake said “well, Madi, people think its pretty special”. That’s what made me start to notice all the love that is out there for us many often suffering pregnant women. We may be uncomfortable and sweaty, painful and disorganized, but there’s something pretty special about a lady with a baby in her tummy. And that makes this all just a little more beautiful.
That being said, Im still uncomfortably gassy....so I bet one of those people wouldn’t want to sit in a car with me....even if they do think Im “glowing”.
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