On being an initiate to the club

I count myself incredibly blessed that I have been surrounded by the warmth and support of some amazing women in Chicago who have already given birth, and so can offer great wisdom about going through pregnancy, labor, and preparing for motherhood. I honestly don't know what I would do (or how crazy I would be) without them.

When my first close friend went through pregnancy and birth, I remember very distinctly going to visit her at the hospital. It was a day or two after labor, and somehow she just looked different to me. Wiser. More knowing. And I thought to myself "She's in the club." Because there seems to be this thing that women who have been through birth have, like the process of labor and delivery is the sort of thing that really cannot be grasped mentally and must be experienced. Spanish has two different verbs for "to know" one of which means to know intellectually, and the other of which means to know by experience. Women in the club know by experience.

But a totally random encounter, facilitated by the ubiquitous network technology of Facebook, has given me an appreciation of the value of knowing other initiates to the club…first timers like me. Thanks to the magic of facebook, I discovered that three girls I knew (as acquaintences) in High School are all pregnant now as well. One of them is pregnant with triplets! Her name is Erinn (like me, but with an extraneous N). She too is keeping a baby blog with updates on how things are going, and she sent me the link.

I found myself totally absorbed in her little updates. And part of the fascination came with the shared sense of newness. She had one post where she marveled that she no longer really wanted to eat chocolate. Not only did I think “me too! I felt the same way!” but I immediately recognized the tone of her words, because it was the tone of someone reflecting on something utterly new for the first time.

Later she wrote about how she was constantly tired and hungry. And it isn’t that experienced moms didn’t feel the same way, or couldn’t remember it. I think it is more the shared sense among initiates that such a revelation is newsworthy. It is worth putting on our blogs because it is this unexpected totally new experience. And although we intellectually understand that it probably happens to everyone from the dawn of time on down, emotionally we have the sense that this is the first time in the history of the world that this is happening and it is happening to us, and we just have to share what a wild ride it is.

And somehow piecing together this new understanding that helps me explain my craving for the company of other initiates to the club of motherhood has also given me a new appreciation for what I am going through. I have not been someone who approaches each day of my pregnancy like a miracle to be constantly marveled at. Sometimes I have felt it just a mildly annoying state that is a necessary precursor to the joys (and trials) of having a baby. But now, realizing that this is the only time I will be pregnant for the first time makes me want to take more time to stop and appreciate all I am thinking and feeling.

And there goes the baby. Kicking again. Baby likes jury duty.