Monday, August 20, 2007

Selective memory: nature's method of convincing women to have more than one child

As I drifted off to sleep last night, I thought, It's funny, isn't it, how I can remember exactly the sensation of the baby moving while I was pregnant, from the first maybe-it's-just-gas taps near my bellybutton to the uncomfortable-yet-reassuring kicks to my liver, and yet my memory of the pain of labor is very vague, just an intellectual fact.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh, funny how that works. I've had two, one with an epidural, the other completely au natural (but only because he decided that two hours of labor was more than ample, who needs time to hook mom up to the good stuff?). I can't really remember the sensations from either experience. Just that it hurt. And my husband make wisecracks. And I threatened to kill him.

Sabrina said...

What's nuttier is that sometimes I think I still feel the kicking. Granted, my little one is 1 month old, so it hasn't been terribly long since I WAS feeling those kicks. But I also don't really remember the pain much either.

Rima said...

I know!!! I apparently signed off to donate my umbilical cord and/or placenta for research purposes(sorry if TMI) and have ABSOLUTELY NO RECOLLECTION of this!

Elizabeth said...

Amie, I think my husband was too nervous to make wisecracks. I did shush him as the surgery was beginning though because his reassuring murmurs were ticking me off for some reason.

Sabrina, I spent the first couple of months after Adriana was born sleeping on my left side with my hand on my right side where she used to kick me. I waited to feel kicks, even though I was facing her in her co-sleeper.

Rima, I actually remember a good deal of the details of the labor and birth--a surprising amount, actually, considering how long it went on and how tired I was because of that--it's just that I have no physical memory of the pain. Very cool that you donated the placenta, though. I'm not sure what happened to mine.