Help a Writer! *big cute eyes* please?

Greetings to all of you hip and earthy Mamas!

I'm a budding writer on a mission.

See, Myself and two of my best friends have started a weekly writing circle. Each week we have an assignment to accomplish.

This weeks assignment was to write a short story about being a mother or being pregnant, and avoiding using the word "life" anywhere in the story.

Not particularily easy when one has never been pregnant, especially since I want to write a rich first person mental dialogue type of story.

Please regale me with stories of what it was like to be pregnant! Your day to day living, the way your body changed and how you felt about that, the way people treated you and if they did so differently.

Let me know how it feels/felt.

Show me, if you can.

*bows*

Thank you

 

Thank you SO much Starfly!

Your experiences are wonderful and rich, and they will help me understand what it is like to be pregnant and to write from that point of view.

Once I finish my story, I'll post it here, to share with all of you for helping me.

Any other memories and stories are welcome!

 

When I was pregnant I was alone and scared. The father had asked me to marry him before I was pregnant to get what he wanted(I figured that out dumbly later on). I was 17. I cried, I hid, I lost my friends and I lost the father. I told no one, no one but that creep. He was older by the way and knew if anyone knew he could be arrested. He cheated and lied. He abused me emotionally. I was slowly dying inside myself.... Until the day the baby kicked. The day I first felt him there was the happiest day I'd had in a long time. It put determination in me. It fueled me to get up and move. I would sit in my room alone for hours playing music and meditating... feeling my beautiful baby. I felt like I knew him already, I knew he was a boy, I felt his warmth and love wriggle around inside my stomach. I would stroke my stomach and sing to him. I made it a point to tell him I loved him. I knew then there was no way I could give the child I loved with all my heart away. I finally told my mom. Oddly, she told me she loved me and hugged me. For the first time in months I let someone hold me and I cried. I knew then that I could give him a future. I was finally getting along with the baby's father. We bought(with my money... BIG mistake) a VW bus and tried to live together. The day my baby was due he was gone... he took the bus and left. He went to Key West and partied till his little heart was content. Meanwhile, I finally felt what it was like to be free of him. I was scared to be alone but happy to have my baby to myself. He was mine and just mine always. The father didn't love or care for him like I did. I promised him I would never do that to him. And, I never will. He was induced a week later and I named him Croix. Croix was beautiful and my new love. I have never been in so much love with anyone before as I am with my beautiful little boys. Unforetunetly, when the father came back 3 weeks later he was too afraid to hold his own son. He left again about another week later. He stayed away for a couple of months then came back one day...drug free and an acting like a normal human being. We talked, he made alot of empty promises. We decided we wanted to stay together. He was good to Croix. I accidently became pregnant again but I didn't know until the baby kicked (very freaky!). After a couple months the demons of addiction came crawling back and stole him away. I loved him very much but I knew our boys needed better. I left him. Things were hard with a baby and being pregnant. I was so sore I could hardly lay without screaming. I loved the baby but to tell you the truth pregnancy this time depressed me. I wish I was more mentally conected while pregnant with him as I was his brother. I was unforetunetly too busy to take the time to think about him and meditate as much(I don't have that problem now, I love them both equally). Noah was born a year and 2 wks later(after croix was born). He was another beautiful happy boy. He looked just like his brother. The day he was born was kind of funny. I woke up October 4th feeling crampy. I got out of bed and it passed. As I was going down the stairs about a minute later I cramped again and knew what was happening. We left immediatly. I forgot to call the doctor and hospital because I was so panicked, lol. I walked in and they were annoyed with me and didn't offer me a wheel chair, they just led me back to a bed. They asked how bad my pain was and checked me. After the first nurse checked me the other one did and they both started hurrying and calling the doctor. In the meantime my water breaks and oh no! The baby is coming out right then and there. I was just layed down in bed, no doctor just two nurses. He was born pretty quickly... a couple of pushes. He was in my arms in a half hour after I got there. It was beautiful because Croix was with me the whole time playing. He didn't realize what was going on and seeing him worry about what was happening to me kept me focused, calm and QUIET. I wanted to scream... it felt like I was being repeatidly run over by a truck. I felt like I was being stung by a million bees when he was moving down! Thank god it was over quickly! The doctor came in after the baby was born and looked pretty shocked, lol.

People look down on me everyday and judge me. I try not to care. They don't know me. I focus all of my time and attention on my wonderful beautiful boys. The reason I get up, the reasons I laugh and am truely happy each day are because of them. I have never felt so much joy, love, and happiness! I am actully doing things with myself because of the love I have for them. I am continuing on for a college education because I want to make sure they are happy and well taken care of. I don't need their father... neither do they. They will and are much happier not having to see the way he is struggling to not get high everyday. Pregnancy is a beautiful wonderful time. There is nothing in the world like feeling a child grow inside of you. The way they wriggle and touch your heart with their soul is amazing and unexplainable. Definatly a thing worth experiancing! Labor pain is worth the pain you go through. To wake up everyday to their beautiful faces pays back all the pain you ever felt to get them there.


Thats what my pregnancies were like, hope it isn't too long!

Eryn

 

I was 19 when I found out I was pregnant. it was so scary!! I didn't want to be, but I couldn't have an abortion. I was in love with the father. That is, until he decided he could control me with the pregnancy. I was more than three months preg. when I told my family. The father and I fought constantly. I know now that I was too young and he was too much of an ASS to be parents. Anyway, pregancy was pretty normal. No morning sickness or anything like that. Come labor time, I wa set on having a natural birth, like my mother did THREE TIMES!! i had a whole day of labor at home. Finally, my contractions were close enough to go to the hospital. It was @6PM when we got to the hospital. I was only dilated to 2 cm. I walked around the hospital for an hour until my water broke. I went back to triage and they gave me pitocin (induced labor---don't do it!!)then the contraction were horrrible!!! I still wasn't dilated enough. Around 4:30 am. after excruciating labor pains I decided to get an epidural. That was SCARY. The stupid nurse had to do it TWICE because she missed the first time. (Now I have horrible back pain--coincidence--hmm) anyway, I dilated to 10 cm within 10 minutes...my obgyn had to rush to the hospital at 4:45 am. Madeline came at 4:54 am with no problems!!! That was 1998!!


Next..Virginia!! She was 5 weeks early. I was planning a home birth, but at 7 months I had a weird feeling and decided to go back to my original obgyn. (This was last year). She was on maternity leave, so her partner had to take me. Every went fine at my appt. Two weeks later, my mucus plug came out. I called the dr. and she said to go to the hospital. So, we went to the hospital, and I was already at 4 cm, without any contractions. The dr. had to pop the placenta and it had meconium (fetus poop) in it. That usually means stress on the baby, but she didn't tell me because she didn't want to freak me out. A few hours later, I had an epidural. The baby's heartrate went down with every contraction, and my blood pressure droppped. I was put on oxygen and had to get on my hands and knees to get my daughter's heartrate normal. When I finally got to push, the umbilical cord came out first (prolapsed.) My obgyn hopped on the bed and shoved my baby back inside of me. She said I had to have an emergency c-section or the baby would die. So, I freaked out. I was crying hysterically. Then, they gave my more epidural so I wouldn't feel them cutting my stomach open (I still felt the cutting--like a zipper--very weird) I felt her pull my baby out of me. It was so horrible,like I wasn't even a part of it. I couldn't have my husband with me because they thought something would happen to me and they didn't want him to see it. But, my anesthesiologist was wonderful. She reassured my that my daughter was fine, after she came out. And she was beautiful. My husband got to hold her in the OR, but had to pass out because my guts were still out!! Anyway, now she is a healthy 15 month old little girl!! And i can still have a vaginal birth!! It was so scary, but so much worth it!! The only thing that was wrong with her, being early, was a little jaundice. After being under the billi-lights she was great!! Now,no one could even tell she was preemie.

 

oh wow sug, I was on the edge of my seat reading that! I'm glad your both fine now. WOW that must have been horrible. They scared me with croix like that a little bit too. I almost got c-sectioned. Your so brave to have not lost it when they told you what was going on. If they told me my baby would die if I had a vaginal birth and they wouldnt let anyone be with me while I was suddenly having a c-section I think I'd be freaking out!

 

I have been pregnant six times. Two of those babies are in heaven, as they didn't have the equipment to make it through the first trimester. I still feel they are mine. The other four were born when I was 24, 26, 30 and 37.

Although I usually feel ill for the first few months, and spend the last 4-5 months of bedrest, due to the fact that my body wants to birth babies before they are old enough to do well, I still feel very special when I am pregnant. I know nearly every womyn on the planet has had children, but I always feel special, knowing there is a little being growing in me. The baby grows and grows and I get a little panicky when I think about the fact that now that baby is going to have to get OUT somehow. I have complicated pregnancies and my babies have to be born by C section, so knowing I will be at the mercy of others during the birth process is rather disempowering. I deal with it by controlling what I can about the birth, and by COMPLETELY caring for my babies on my own after they are born. I know that breastfeeding my first child healed me from the ordeal of a 56 hour labor, over 3 hours of pushing and then a painful C section. I don't know how I would have survived, knowing I couldn't birth my babies OR feed them. I had a really really hard time nurisng my first one. I was given "permission" from everyone I knew to quit, but I didn't. Sunshine and I overcame what some people thought was a lost cause, and I nursed her and her siblings into toddlerhood.

I always have birth dreams and nursing dreams when I am pregnant. The only way I have ever given birth vaginally is in my dreams. Caring for and nursing my babies after they are born is one of the most amazing things about being a womyn.

 

Thank you ALL so much for your contibutions, for telling me your stories and giving me an idea of what it is like to be pregnant.

I've finished my story.

Like it often happens, as I was writing the story started writing itself rather than turning into what I had originally envisioned. So it is less of a soft, introspective take on early pregnancy...actually. Its not that at all.

I have a character, Kim and a story and world surrounding her. In her world, she is not going to become pregnant but since I know Kim, I figured it would be easier to write from her perspective.

She's a little bit more of a Punk than I, and has seen more in her short lifetime. She's seventeen, and in this story, newly pregnant.

And here I post the link for you to read, since you so kindly assisted me. Be warned, there is mention of abortion and abortive procedures and if that is something that would hurt or offend you, do not read, but do be aware that in this story, the abortion was not successful.

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/849613

Enjoy! And thank you again!