Baby Stuff - Birthing Class

I am going to have a baby.  Really soon.

For most of the time that I've been pregnant, I've been working on getting used to the idea of becoming a mother without my husband.  Now that it's almost here though, and I'm going through all of the typical pre-baby stuff, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it.

The baby preparation has been a challenge all along- I told my parents and in-laws that I was pregnant the day Ryan died.  I went to my first prenatal appointment that day as well, and have gone to every one since with my sister instead of my husband.  The first time I went to Babies R Us to register for baby gifts, I cried in the aisles because I was so full of grief that he couldn't be there picking out baby things with me.  Ryan loved toys (see a future blog post which will focus exclusively on this), so it would have been a ton of fun registering with him.  The loss has been there for every stage of the pregnancy, little and big things, good and bad.  There has been no normalcy.  It has, however, always felt pretty distant.

Now though, it's coming happening very soon, and all of the little things that need to be done are happening.  Two weeks ago, I started my birthing classes.  Tracy, my older sister, offered months ago to be my labor coach, so I knew I would have a partner for this.  Leading up to the classes though, I was extremely apprehensive.  How could I handle walking into a room full of young happy couples, ready to have their first babies together?  For them, this would be one of the happiest, most exciting times of their lives.  It would be a room full of what I was missing.  Hospital employees take note: it would be really helpful to offer these classes separately for single mothers.

So, I've been worried about this for some time.  When we walked in the first week, I had blinders on, a coping mechanism I've gotten really good at.  I didn't look at any of the other couples in there, I just walked to my seat and looked straight ahead.  I later counted five other couples, happy new parents times five, plus me and Tracy.  I've found over time that simply explaining my situation up front is often a better course than keeping it to myself; people tend to be really uncomfortable for a few minutes, but it saves me from being uncomfortable for a longer period of time.  So when we introduced ourselves, I explained who Tracy was and why she was there.  After that the class itself wasn't so bad, I'd gotten lucky and didn't get a group full of super bubbly newlyweds full of public displays of affection.  But, the whole thing, just like everything else, was so surreal.  I couldn't help thinking about how if Ryan were here, he would have put his arm around the back of my chair and rubbed my back periodically, or held my hand during the video.  I thought of the jokes he would have made about the emoticons on the "stages of labor" poster, and how we would have gotten a quick bite to eat together after.  At the end of the class, when we did deep breathing, I involuntarily imagined sitting leaning against his legs instead of Tracy's, the whole time being acutely aware that it wasn't.

The second class was worse.  In it, we practiced breathing through simulated contractions.  The focus of the exercise was for our partners to know how to give support during increasingly uncomfortable contractions- mainly through touch and massage.  We sat in front of our partners, so they could massage our backs during the fake contractions.  In the room all around me, husbands comfortably rubbed their wives backs.  And my poor sister tried, as she always does, to do the right thing for me.  But for me there isn't always a right thing to do.  Tears started rolling down my cheeks and all I could feel was cold reality.  Ryan wouldn't be there to rub my back during labor, or to hold my hand, or to kiss my forehead, or to share in the joy of the end result.  Tracy massaging my back just made me think about how Ryan wasn't, and won't.  There's no fixing it or making it better.  I think I feel a little aversion to having anyone touch me at all during labor, though I know I can't know what I'll feel like until I'm there.

The religious and spiritual people in my life are always ready to point out that Ryan will be there with me, and he'll help me.  I believe that too, I do.  But it does not comfort me.  Ryan being there in spirit does not make up for him not being here in the flesh.  Missing his touch, his support, his voice- there's nothing that can replace that, and I'm not sure how I'll make it through.  I just keep telling myself that these are things I can do- that I am strong enough for it.  That's how I got through the birthing class, I just kept saying "I can do this, because I have to".  I'm sure I can.  Like so many things though, it seems completely impossible (not to mention unfair) that I should be having to do it under these circumstances.