Crawling Is Supposed to Hurt, & So Is The End Of Pregnancy

Have you ever decided to get down on your knees with the kids and crawl around for even a minute?  Holy HECK people, that stuff hurts!  No wonder the kids want to start walking as soon as possible.

My current sweet baby has just decided that crawling hurts too much (we have tile floors, so....OUCH!) and is attempting to walk like the rest of human kind on just the two feet.  I started to wonder if she would ever do it.  All my other children were walking before a year and this one...well, she didn't even seem interested.

Not much cruising going on.  Not much interest.  She was a happy crawler.  Fast and cute as a button.  She even took to wearing flip-flops on her hands as she made her four legged way around the house.  How hilarious is that?!

Happy!

Then, suddenly and the day before she turned 13 months she decided it was time.  She walked.  Across the room.  She was ready!

Now of course she prefers to walk.  It is a little more comfortable and certainly hurts less on the concrete patio.  No more dirty knees and being below the big kids.  She has joined the ranks of toddlers.

I have decided that humans tend to be perpetually dissatisfied with life.  The downside of this is that lots of us spend too much time complaining.  The upside though is that we strive- we want MORE from life.  The dissatisfaction helps us push ourselves to be better and faster and happier.  We have this desire even as babies.  We want to find an easier way and be a little more like those around us.

Getting tired of this...

I have had people complain sometimes about this little blog for various reasons.  (Too many to get into or even care about.)  But sometimes that complaint is that I use the word "pain" when it comes to birth on occasion.

I think it is absolutely FABULOUS if a woman takes the right birth class and has a painless birth.  It is also shockingly wonderful if a woman is happy as a clam and feels like a million bucks at the end of her pregnancy.  It happens, I have even kind of been there.

But...

I no longer believe that life is supposed to be easy and breezy all the day long.  It requires work and sacrifice and yes, sometimes pain in order to be better, do more, and find out what we are capable of.  

A healthy infant will eventually want to get off the floor.  They will push themselves.  They will stand and find a better way of getting around.  Some will do it earlier.  Some later.  Some will even need some encouragement.  But they get there.  They decide they are ready for something different.  

 This baby is ready to escape! 

A pregnant woman will eventually go into labor.  As I get older and more jaded (and have experienced four blessed pregnancies) I believe that that PAIN at the end of pregnancy serves a purpose.  For me, it makes me WILLING to go through the work of labor.  It makes me open to the idea of another birth.

When I found out I was pregnant with my fourth baby I was petrified.  This is kind of embarrassing to admit on my natural birth blog- but I was scared of giving birth again.  I had just done it about a year before and I remembered the intensity.  I remembered recovery and sleepless nights and all the stuff we aren't supposed to talk about.

By the end of my pregnancy though, I was ready to give birth!  BRING IT!  Oh yeah, pregnancy makes you willing to push a nine pound baby out of your crotch.  That's just the truth ladies.

So maybe the end of pregnancy "hurts".  It is almost definitely uncomfortable and there is pretty much no way it feels as good as not being pregnant.  But just like the intensity of labor (that makes you want to push out the baby) and just like the hard cement on baby knees, the pain of pregnancy serves a purpose.

It prepares us for accepting the next road, a road we may have been afraid of or resistant to experiencing.  It gives us  motivation to birth.  Like a baby crawling they all have their own mind.  A baby is not just a passenger, they are already involved in the process.  They want to be part of the decision making.  You can't force a baby to walk and you can't force them to come when convenient.  They choose their own timing and it doesn't always jive with ours.

To me that is the biggest lesson of pregnancy, and much more important than the aching back and joints and swollen feet.  The lesson of pregnancy is that we no longer are totally in control of our lives.  Another human being is both dependent and needy of us and our time and our will.  Sometimes we have to accept what is best for them and allow our own comfort to take a back seat.

THAT is why I love birth- it is a teacher and in the most poetic and subtle ways.  Pregnancy and birth do not exist to cause us pain, they exist to teach us how to be mothers.  Motherhood is not always a painless road but it is one you want to travel.  It has the best scenery.  Take a moment to look around.  You just might enjoy it.