How Giving Birth Has Changed My Best Friend
She once was a really ‘tough cookie’.
I remember it clearly: In January 2018, my best friend Vivian gave birth to her beautiful daughter Lily. She became a mom for the very first time and therefore got to experience the most remarkable thing in her life.
As we were talking on the phone a couple of weeks ago, she was sipping a glass of red wine at her kitchen table. We were more than 5,000 miles apart — I was in Los Angeles, she was in Berlin. But despite the nine-hour time difference, we started a deep conversation about the day she was giving birth. And for the first time, she told me everything!
“It was an experience I’ll never forget, and something that has changed me as a person,” she explained. Seeing Vivian as a mother always makes me incredibly proud. She does everything with an unbelievable amount of self-evidence — like it’s the easiest job in the world. But of course, her priorities have changed and she now has to juggle between taking care of a little human, being a wife, keeping in touch with friends, and having a job.
“I do have memories of the time leading up to giving birth. Having contractions was something that I was coping with mostly fine, up to a certain point. We went to the hospital and were sent back home because they said I wasn’t ready yet. They were wrong. When we went back home my water broke and my pain intensified a lot. My contractions started coming really fast and we couldn’t go back into a cab to drive to a hospital. We had to call the ambulance to pick me up because I couldn’t move anymore. They wanted me to stay home and have a home birth because my contractions were already so close. They were super scared that I would give birth in their car. But despite having crazy pains every 60 seconds, I stood up and said:
‘This is my body. This is my child. This is my choice. I’m going to the hospital right now. You can follow me, or you can stay here.’
That was me fighting for what I wanted for me and my child. I think that was the first jump into real motherhood. Then, they took me to a hospital, and from that moment on, I really can’t remember that much. I felt like my mind wasn’t where it usually is. I just felt like I didn’t do anything up to the point where I was pushing. I was somehow hypnotized by this whole experience of what my body was going through. It’s absolutely crazy.”
As a childless 25-year-old, my mind was blown. And obviously, I wanted to dig deeper. Vivian then said: “My memory comes back to that moment when I said to the midwife and my husband: ‘Okay, I think she’s coming. I can feel her coming down slowly.’ And then it only took a few seconds or minutes when I had the nastiest contraction ever. It was so horrible that I thought: ‘I’m not having another one of those.’
I gained strength at that moment. I wanted it to be over and I wanted her to be out.
So, I pushed out her head which is the most painful part and I remember screaming, and then, with the second contraction, I pushed out her body.”
I knew Vivian well before she became a mother. It’s no surprise that she changed since that day in January 2018. After asking her about how she feels now, she admitted: “I have become way more empathetic and way more caring than I used to be. I’m also way more sensitive.
Before, I was more of a tough cookie, and now I feel more emotional. I learned what love is.
Also, I give my body so much more credit now. Before, I felt like my mind was the only thing that was in control. After being pregnant and after giving birth, I realized that there are two parties that have to work together. I think my body has a little personality on its own. I can listen to it way better now, and I take signals way more seriously.”
