Confession

I think that I am ready for the whole labor process. I feel like I have accepted my role and am OK with the concept of childbirth. I believe that Michael and I will kick ass with the whole labor thing! I've come a long way, haven't I?

However, I have confession to make.

The biggest issue I have to deal with now is the idea of being empty inside after the baby is gone. I'm not speaking emotionally. I'm speaking physically.

In our childbirth class, we were shown a picture of a woman's body before and during pregnancy. The before picture showed the organs all nicely spread out throughout the body's cavity. I had always assumed that when a woman is pregnant her guts were essentially still in the same spot, just behind the baby. We'll add that to the growing list of bad assumptions. The picture showing how a pregnant woman's body is laid out showed all the guts pushed up into the rib cage. Yes, all of them. The baby is essentially the only thing occupying my body cavity (with the exception of my bladder, conveniently located under the baby's head).

So my problem? My confession is this:

It totally weirds me out to know that I am going to be completely empty inside after the baby is born. Oh, I know that my guts will all fall back into place, but YUCK! Gross. Ewww! Blech. It's the "in between stage" that is the most difficult thing for me to accept at the moment.

I just shared this issue with a coworker a few minutes ago and she said that she remembers how a few days after her baby was born, she bent over to turn on the water in the bath tub and her skin on her stomach fell forward and totally grossed her out. She said she never realized how "empty" she was until that moment. I politely thanked her for the warning and came back to my office to vent into a post.

Ick.