You Are What You Wear

Showing up at the hospital with suitcases and pillows and champagne and thirty pounds of camera equipment only to be sent home because you're not in active labor is not just a major bummer (dude) but also a bit of a mindfuck. There I thought I was all in tune with my body, certainly knowing it well enough to distinguish between the Braxton-Hicks contractions I'd been feeling for months and these apparent labor contractions--which sorta kinda hurt for once--and yet I was mistaken. How was I to trust my body after six hours of crying wolf every three to five minutes?

Everyone says that when you're in real, active, no-nonsense labor you'll "just know," to which I say, "Phooey." I "just knew" that first night and was wrong, and on the second night--the night that counted--I can't say I "just knew" I was in labor, although I "just knew" I was going to the hospital and I "sure as hell knew" I wasn't going to let the L&D triage nurses turn me away without some kind of pain medication (perhaps a whack with an oversized cartoon mallet?) because, active labor or not, I was hurting something awful and needed some relief, and not the kind you spell R-O-L-A-I-D-S.

As it was, they were fresh out of mallets but stocked to the gills with sweet, sweet drugs and I, being in real, undeniable, active labor at that point (hooray!) was soon stocked to the gills with drugs myself. (In addition to the sweet, sweet drugs, I was pumped so full of fluid over the course of my long labor that I look like Jabba in all the immediate pre- and post-birth photos, which is not exactly tragic but certainly regrettable. More regrettable, however, was that when I weighed myself a few days after giving birth to a seven-pound baby, the scale said I'd only lost four pounds. Surely someone could have warned me about that.)

Anyway, based on the difference between my first and second trips to the hospital, I now have my own answer to the question "How do you know you're in labor?" This one's for the ladies...

You Know You're in Labor When: You don't care what you look like. You don't change out of your sweatpants into a "cute labor outfit." You don't take a shower or do your hair, which has been in a tangled bun since you reached the point of being so pregnant you Officially Stopped Caring (was that yesterday or the day before?). You Know You're in Labor When: You don't stop to take one last belly shot, or a dozen bathroom-mirror shots to ensure you get at least one capturing your angelic maternal expression during this most blessed event.

You Know You're in Labor When: You just throw a coat over whatever you're wearing and hope you don't break the mirror with the force of your scowl when you take one last picture just for the hell of it.

In short: When you're in labor, you'll look like shit. When we went to the hospital, I looked like shit. During our entire stay at the hospital, I looked like shit--smiling shit, but still shit. Those first few days home, I looked like shit too, even with all the pampering. (Thanks, Mom!) Then, slowly but surely, as I stopped feeling like shit--about five days postpartum--I stopped looking like shit. Or...was it the other way around?

Everyone knows the stereotypical image of the bedraggled housewife/mother at the grocery store in her sweatpants and slippers, oversized T-shirt stained with mystery fluids. I'll admit that even before I was a mom I was perhaps a little too casual about showering daily and not wearing the same pair of jeans five days in a row (am gross), but I never ever ever went out in sweatpants and slippers, and since giving birth I've remained adamant about retaining that one little bit of pride, even now that I have the best excuse to be lax.

Case in point: We went to the grocery store a few nights ago and I not only showered and shaved for the occasion, but I put on makeup (the fancy kind), and got so dressed up I even accessorized with a cute belt. (How I missed you, belts!) Sure, there was dried vom in my hair--and on my shirt and on my pants--but my hair was styled and my pants were fitted and my shirt was tailored, and I felt like a million bucks. It didn't matter that my look was wasted on the patrons of the cereal aisle because I FELT GOOD. Yes, I'm a new mom and no, I don't have my act entirely together, but I'm still a person, still a girl, still me.

Thus it was that the first several weeks home with Wombat I made great efforts to shower daily and put on pants and comb my hair and brush my teeth and generally try to look like I hadn't just spent all day wiping a butt, wiping a butt, wiping a butt. In the early days, basic personal hygiene was a triumph and the only non-baby-related task I needed to complete to feel like a success. Six weeks out, though, I found I had to raise my game to feel accomplished; no one was going to stick a gold star on my forehead because I somehow found the time and strength that day to brush my teeth. I could no longer pat myself on the back just because I'd run a brush through my bangs. The trouble is that now, in an effort to get something of worth done each day, I'm speding my scant free time doing things like cleaning and exercising instead of...yep, showering and brushing my teeth. Doh. I'm getting more done, but I look like a giant unwiped butt, which shouldn't really matter at all (I'm not going out in public and Simon doesn't judge) except that when I look it I feel it, and that's not fun. I still manage to get dressed up when I go out, but I really need to start making an effort to get dressed period when I stay in, not for Simon or Wombat or anyone else, but for me. When I look better I feel better. (I know. Alert the media.) So, here's to the next six weeks, of showering, of tooth and hair brushing, of shaving, and of feeling good (like a clean, powdered butt?).

(Although I didn't care what I looked like the night we headed out to have a baby, one thing I did care about was what music we listened to on the ride to the hospital. I didn't have any preferences for what was on, but I most certainly had strong feelings about what we absolultely could not listen to. Bjork, for instance, was a little too, ahh, INTENSE a soundtrack for what was already a sufficiently intense experience, thankyouverymuch. When I told Simon to pick something else, his next selection wasn't much better; I nearly strangled him to the strains of "Heaven / I'm in heaven / and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak." Note to the gentlemen: "Cheek to Cheek" is lovely, but NOT A GOOD LABOR SONG. At least not before the epidural kicks in. After that, even this is okay.)

wrote Leah at 6:37 AM | Comments (9)