One Year, Less Some Hours, Mercifully Forgotten
One year ago tonight, I was in labour. I had been in labour for, oh, 18 hours or thereabouts. I would remain in labour for another 18 hours.
Thankfully, I’ve blanked most of it out.
30+ hours BEFORE arrival of the WonderBaby. Note ginormousness. Also note deluded smile, unique to women who mistakenly believe that it will all be over soon, and that effort of pushing a being the size of a prize-winning pumpkin through nether regions will be entirely manageable.
Tomorrow… tomorrow is for remembering the joy.
(That is – after a very exciting blogradio debate on feminism with Julie, hosted by Kristen!
After that joy, the birthday joy will be indulged.)
Posted by Her Bad Mother on November 14, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized
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."What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." (Nietzsche, Aphorism 153, Beyond Good And Evil.) Not, unfortunately, beyond Dora dolls that shout 'WE DID IT!' when you step on them, but you learn to cope with that.
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Nov 14, 2006
Happy birthday Wonderbaby! And HBM! You look gorj in this picture!! GORJ!
Nov 14, 2006
What a cute preggo lady you are! Happy Birthday WB
Nov 14, 2006
Oh you looked great pregnant! No one (internet or otherwise) will ever see what I looked like 30 hours prior to giving birth!
Nov 14, 2006
I fourth what they said. What a gorgeous preggo!
Nov 14, 2006
Glorious – you look absolutely wonderful (and like me, completely unaware of what was about to happen).
Nov 14, 2006
I’m dying to see tomorrow’s picture!
)
Nov 14, 2006
Oh HOORAY! She’s one?! Awesome.
And great pic. Seriously – you look ridiculously fabulous laying on that bed.
Talk to you tonight!
Nov 14, 2006
Wow!
That was you in labour?! I’m duly impressed. Never ever ever would I post my labour (even early labour) pics.
Very jealous!
Nov 14, 2006
Happy birthday, Wonderbaby!
(And you look amazing. From the first contraction, I pretty much looked like I’d been run over by a bus. Come to think of it, I might’ve been, somewhere around the 18th hour of labor.)
Nov 14, 2006
you look HOT!
Nov 14, 2006
This picture was taken in the early stages of labour – hour four, maybe? – when the contractions were still very much of the dainty ‘ooh, felt one!’ variety. I was in hospital already because I thought – wrongly, apparently – that my water had broken, and being GBS positive meant that I had to be there once that happened.
They sent me home an hour later, having determined that my water had not yet broken. An hour or so after that, the labour started getting painful, and worsened over the next, um, 28 HOURS. During which, I looked most emphatically like shit.
Nov 14, 2006
Y’know, it wasn’t until my daughter’s second birthday that I realized it was actually MY birthing day. Kinda tried to block out the trauam, y’know?…
Nov 14, 2006
You look wonderful! I looked like a blob. And I think I burned all the pictures of me before Dawson was born!
Nov 14, 2006
Happy birthday to you both! A year and a day ago, I betcha you had some ideas about what you’d be thinking today. And I betcha they weren’t 100% accurate, huh? Motherhood does that.
Congratulations, you’re 1/18th of the way done with legal responsibility (I hope!). As for the emotional responsibility, well, I think that’s a life sentence.
Nov 14, 2006
Labour becomes you. My early stages were at 3am, so I had glasses and no makeup. Ick! Nobody wants to see that.
Looking forward to the WB Birthday post!
Nov 14, 2006
Happy early birthday to WonderBaby, HBM. Looking forward to hearing you and Kristen tonight!
Nov 14, 2006
You’re still as slim as a willow wand compared to the parade float I resembled when last pregant. Love the smile…however deluded.
Nov 14, 2006
People. I weighed over 193 lbs in that picture (193 being what I had weighed in at five days earlier. Knowing me, and my partum-penchant for brownies, and the multiple helpings of creme brulee that I consumed at a wedding at the Four Seasons that weekend, I packed on even more poundage.)
I was HUGE.
Nov 14, 2006
What a prize-winning pumpkin WonderBaby turned out to be! With 28 hours of labor, I’m surprised that you are giving any thought to a second child. It’s trickery how we forget.
Love the smile. Love the belly. Smooches to the birthday girl!
Nov 14, 2006
You really do look fab in that pic. I’m not just buttering you up prior to our debate. Really.
Happy happy to you, your husband, and your WonderToddler. WonderRunner? WonderSprinter?
Nov 14, 2006
Ouch, ouch, ouch.
There are no photos of me in anything even resembling labour – I was too busy vomiting. Ah, memories.
36 hours? Ouch.
Nov 14, 2006
Happy Birthday, Wonder Not-Quite-A-Baby! I have a similar picture of me in the early moments of labor all chirpy and smiling. Can’t wait for tomorrow!
Nov 14, 2006
WonderBaby and I share a birthday, which obviously makes her an exemplary child.
She’s a Scorpio – no wonder she’s been running you ragged. I’ve been told we’re, um, difficult.
Happy birthday, WonderBaby!
Nov 14, 2006
Happy birthday, indeed!
I’ve gotten two referrals via your blog, and I stopped by to say thanks…we’re both blogger chick/blogging chicks/something to do with chicks and blogging…
I need to go home.
Anyway, great blog and happy birthday to the wee one!
Nov 14, 2006
one HOT mama there, bad. you go, woman.
enjoy your memory walk – you deserve it.
happiest to you.
Nov 14, 2006
You look great! I was momentarily jealous of the radiance of this shot, and that I have no photos, but then I remembered that my entire labour from first-ouch to baby-out was 3 whole hours, and at 1am to boot. I was refusing to put clothes on to go to the hospital and rolling naked in my upstairs hallway through most of my labour, so it’s just as well there’s not photo.
Question: did you wear your glasses throughout? I had a compulsion to take mine off, as they were making me insane and I needed to concentrate and I couldn’t with my glasses on. And I’m a -6 prescription (ie, blind), so all my labour is literally fuzzy.
Nov 14, 2006
How fabulous you look in that photo. Happy labour day
And happy birthday to Wonderbaby!!!
Mine was 40 hours … and I remained naively optmistic for far longer than I should have
Nov 14, 2006
It just isn’t right, you looking so cute and perky, you know. Happy b-day tomorrow, wonderBaby!
Nov 14, 2006
Happy 1st B-day to wonderbaby!!! And what a pretty preggers lady yuo made- and still pretty too – damn you’re good!( totally jelly! lol) congrats on survivng baby’s first year!! Have a ball!
Nov 14, 2006
Holy freaking crap the doula in me is SHOCKED that you were in labour for that long (that is actually the norm for first babies *twinges to out that is) and did not end up with a cesarean. You are a blessed woman. Add the GBS comment that I just noticed and wow! You lucked out big time! BIG TIME! Worshipping the ground that you tread upon that day and a bit!
Happy birthday dear Wonder baby!
Happy Birth Day Bad Mother.
Glad you are both around to tell the tale!
k
Nov 14, 2006
I don’t see ginormousness – just the grin.
Nov 14, 2006
Happy Birthday, Wonderbaby! Ahh, a little scorpio, I should have known — no wonder she knows just how to torture you so.
You look fabulous, by the way.
Nov 14, 2006
Happy Birth Day to you. Where has the year gone?
Nov 14, 2006
Thanks for your comment on my blog!
Happy birthday to your baby! Time does go by fast!
Nov 14, 2006
happy birthday to you both, sweet lady!
xo
Nov 14, 2006
Happy birthday-eve to your baby!
Nov 14, 2006
Happy birthday to the little one…boy do you forget labor pains. Only on seeing your photo I thought of it – though mine was only 3 hrs I paid for it with 4th degree tearing and the resulting consequences for a whole week. That felt more like labor. Read your interesting post on second baby thoughts! Can relate to it!
Nov 14, 2006
You look gorgeous and excited and anxious and…blissfully unaware what was to happen next. Just like me.
Happy one year.
It’s a good thing the mind lets you remember only bits and pieces.
Nov 15, 2006
I’m still in the blissful, blissful state of denial about all of that, thank you very much.
You looked great for someone about to birth a child. Your smile and the look on your face say so much.
Nov 16, 2006
I totally recognized that look on your face.
Clearly, that’s your FIRST pregnancy. You don’t get that look any future time. : )
Nov 17, 2006
Happy anniversary on becoming a mama! You’re cute! And so brave to have your photo taken during labor. You’re even smiling.
Nov 20, 2006
I know everyone has said this already, but I just keep coming back to look at that photo – because you are so gloriously radiant.
Dec 9, 2006
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