Twenty Four Hours Later
This Childbirth Isn’t Going My Way

Life unfolds one moment at a time, and I can’t help but feel anxious. Very anxious. Why is it taking so long? Is there something more I could have done? Are we doing this the “right” way?
I’m afraid. Fear is a strong emotion. Is it fear I feel, or a loss of control? I’m used to things going my way. Ever the optimist, I ceaselessly assume life will turn out alright. Is this a symptom of inhabiting a charmed existence, where health and plenty are the baseline? How would I handle a true misfortune, if I am tied in anxious knots by a mere few hours more in a labor whose discomforts I need not endure?
I’m too hard on myself. We are all more resilient, more capable, and more amazing than we know; than we can imagine, even. I think of the feats accomplished by some of our fellow humans and shake my head in wonder. What a machine the body is! The mind!
Anxiety, I think, is what you feel when you find out you cannot bend the Universe to your will, yet you stubbornly keep trying. Anxiety is fighting the natural order, which is acceptance. Accepting — rather than fighting — the ebbs and flows of life yields calmness, anxiety’s opposite. We know this, yet often persist in our efforts to control, thinking eventually these efforts will pay off, and that one more attempt will bear fruit.
First person shooter gamers know this approach as “spray and pray.” It sometimes works, but at the expense of being ambushed, of running low on ammo, of being reckless in your approach to all things. It is based on the belief of “if I try hard enough, things will go my way.”
In so many areas of reality — and even in virtual reality — this isn’t true.
In so many cases, the best you can hope for is to choose the path that seems the best based on what limited information you possess. We can never know it all, especially not in childbirth.
No amount of preparation fully prepared us for the contingencies of today, but being prepared gave us the knowledge to act powerfully when a decision needed to be made.
Often times, this is the only real control we ever have.
This is but a small piece of my lifelong daily writing practice (Day 130). If you enjoyed this, you may also like some of my other writing.
