I didn’t know how badly I wanted a natural birth until it wasn’t an option

Faced with a choice like that, and advised to schedule a C-section at 37 or 38 weeks (if I made it that far), you let go of most of your previous plans. And it wasn’t until my husband and I dashed out to buy a few baby necessities in case I started bleeding or went into labor early (two of the condition’s risks), did I realize I wouldn’t get to apply anything I’d already read about natural childbirth.

I burst into tears.

It was only then that I knew why I hadn’t been afraid of labor. It was because I really, really wanted to try laboring.

But, life goes on. I was lucky enough to make it to 38 weeks and had a successful C-section that resulted in me giving birth to a healthy boy. So all was well, right?

Well, kind of. I was thankful my problem had been diagnosed, and I was thankful to have gone nearly full-term. My incision healed well and eventually its pain lessened, but I still somehow felt that I had missed the transition from healthy pregnant woman to strong nurturing mother.

My next pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. But my third pregnancy was healthy, without any complications and my obstetrician and I made plans to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after C-section).

Although I was now 39 and again considered high risk due to my advanced maternal age, my doctor was optimistic that I could experience vaginal childbirth. I was thankful for this vote of confidence and immediately felt the same deep thirst to try and help my baby make his transit out through the birth canal.

And once again I almost didn’t get the chance.

When my due date came and went, my doctor demanded that I schedule a C-section at 41 weeks. I did so, begrudgingly, and then went home and promptly set about doing anything and everything I could to induce labor.

Did it hurt? Yeah, it hurt. Did it leave me with some lingering physical issues? Yeah, it did. But would I ever give the experience back? Not on your life.

That first night my youngest son and I lay in our respective hospital beds, staring at each other, and I swear we shared the same thought: “Wow. We have really been THROUGH IT.” My husband was snoring where he lay folded up on the uncomfortable couch in our room. I missed my older son at home.

But I was awake and ecstatic. I had done something physical that I had never done before, and I had a new baby with big brown eyes. It was one of the most thrilling nights of my life.

Everything about having children has surprised me. I was surprised when I was pregnant to feel my babies’ movements, so distinct, within me. I was surprised to find what a body can endure during any process of birth, and what they endure in the weeks afterward—on no sleep, while still bleeding.

I have been surprised at how pleasurable it is to care, physically, for tiny human beings: to keep them clean, warm, fed, and soothed. My children have given me so many things. But perhaps the thing I am most thankful for is how they taught me to really own my body. My body that seems to just give and give everything I ask of it and more.

Even when my boys are too big to gather into my lap, or carry through crowds, I will still hug them, or sling an arm around their shoulders. And when I do, it will remind me of the two miraculous occasions on which my body, my unpredictable co-worker, paid no attention to my plans but still managed to exceed all my expectations.