There’s Going to be a Parade!

It’s almost Mother’s Day and about this time of year I start feeling a little sorry for men.  All that  simmering female expectation and unspoken hope in the air. A sense of the underlying resentment for past missteps.  Hearing snippets of conversation between women…Because they should know.  They have eyes and ears for goodness sake. They were there.

And while veiled hints and carefully placed catalogues have their purpose, all the relationship gurus say women should stop expecting men to read their minds.  Spell it out. So this is my attempt to explain it.

When I was pregnant with my first baby, and it became obvious that I was to others, there was a weird thing that started to happen.  Every mother that I knew (and many perfect strangers) would tell me her story of motherhood from conception to birth.  Every gory detail.  And the more gory and frightening it was, the more enthusiastic she was to tell it.  And I became terrified of this process and the idea of giving birth.  I would think to myself, whyyyyy?!! It was bad enough that my specialist had told me that because of how the baby was positioned that she could break my tailbone on the way out. Good grief!  Do I need your scary story too?  Like, do you really want your skydiving instructor to tell you about the time the chute didn’t open just as you tandem jump from the plane and start your free fall?  Geez Louise.  But this happens all the time to first time moms.  Ask any woman.

It wasn’t until after I gave birth that I understood what was going on.  You see, women spend nine months forming a human being inside their body and everybody just acts like it’s no big deal.  They say to her, hey, can you get me the salt and she doesn’t say, excuse me – I’m working on a pair of lungs over here – she just keeps forming bronchioles and alveolar ducts and passes the salt.  They say to her, why are you so crabby and she doesn’t say, well, osteogenesis is exhausting  and this tiny human is sucking up every ounce of energy I’ve got while it forms bones and teeth and grows a liver – she just glares and slams the bathroom door and cries while she eats crackers so she doesn’t throw up for the fifth time that day.   People say wow – you’re getting huge and she doesn’t even address the rudeness – she just rubs her belly and eats some more steak and greens because atrioventricular and semilunar valves and neural progenitor cells don’t just grow themselves you know. Ugh.

Eventually she gives birth.  And files away in vivid detail her particular and unique version of that story for later. And she stares at the little face in awe and breathes in that fresh from heaven scent and feels the absolute glorious perfection of brand new skin and she whispers, oooohhhmygoodnesss, look at what we made.  And her husband/partner smiles proudly and doesn’t even realize she wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to God.  She looks at that child, fresh from her body, eyes and ears and toes and beating heart and lungs filling with new breath, and she looks around to ask, are you guys seeing this?  Do you see what God and I did here?  And for the first few days or months mostly everybody does.  Everyone wants to hold your tiny miracle and stare at that face and exclaim over her perfect little nose and lips.

But then, it happens.  Ho hum.  Gotta go.  Oh, really, 8 months old already?  My goodness time goes fast.  Really cute. Do you like my new haircut?

And just like that people forget what happened. They move on and treat you like you’re ordinary and women have been having babies since time began and you aren’t special…until even you begin to doubt the wonder of it all.  You get on with life and raise tiny people which is a blog post for another day and you don’t think about it most of the time.   But then a newly pregnant girl crosses your path and it all comes rushing back.  You remember what you knew and experienced and lamazed and you start telling your pregnancy/birth battlefield stories too.  We become like a bunch of World War II vets sitting around swapping stories with people who know what it was like, or will need to know soon enough. The stretch marks and the stitches and the hemorrhoids and the painful breasts and the 36 hours of back labour and the emergency c-section – these are our shrapnel. We want to remember how thrilling and dangerous it was, the courage it took and the sacrifices, oh my the sacrifices – belly crawling through mud across the battlefield with a baby strapped to you for nine months – just to get that child to safety.  Oh, I get it now. They need to know what they’re in for, and what they’re a part of.  Because you need to be prepared for that kind of valor and sacrifice and partnership with deity.  And then you need to be able to honour and celebrate it for at least one day a year.

 And that’s why.  That’s why Mother’s Day is epic.  That’s why this week seems fraught with minefields. That’s why you’ve been getting the side eye.   It’s not surprising you feel the pressure.  What is surprising is that for 364 days of the year she allows everyone the audacity to pretend that nothing extraordinary happened here.  That creating and forming and expelling a complete person from her body is blase blase. Business as usual. 

But not this Sunday.

Mother’s Day is V Day and Remembrance Day and the Fourth of freaking July.  She’s going to need a driver for the convertible, a drumline to proceed her and adoring people waving as she goes by if you’re going to get it right this time. She made a human, for crying out loud. Bones and a brain and sinew and muscle, eyes, ears, organs, a beating heart and the potential for greatness. Don’t even get me started on the sleep deprivation that came next.