Dear Motherhood: The Beauty of Planned Delivery

Dear Motherhood,
     You know when your young and the teacher asks the class what would they like to be when they grow up?  You hear answers from snot nosed kids about dreams of firefighters, astronauts,  princesses, and president of the U.S. of A. Not that these aren't respectable dreams or anything,  they just weren't mine.  I was the girl that held her baby-poops-a-lot close to her chest, raised her hand hi, and declared that I, Brittany Snyder baby extraordinaire, was going to be a mother!
      Naturally,  when one is so devout to achieving such a goal, you must plan. For me personally,  getting pregnant wasn't the easiest task, but when it finally happened....let the planning begin!! I was ready. I was determined.  I was.......clueless. And to be 100% honest, I was also scared shitless. Literally.  The only thing I could do was go with my guts and seek the guidance of friends and family that have had children.  The things I knew for fact were the following: 1. I was going all natural. 2. I wasn't going to be induced in any way. 3. They weren't going to break my water. 4. I was going to stay at home in the tub until contractions were 3 minutes apart. 5. No one...and I mean NO ONE....was going to change my mind.  Most of my family was supportive with the occasional jokes. Most all of my friends just thought I was nuts. But I didn't care. Hey, what did we do before drugs? Women used to grab a tree, have a baby, and go back to work, right? I know I can do this. I'll show them. Then on July 2nd 2016 at 4:30am after 2 hours of sleep....labor happened.
     Okay, I've got this. I creep out of bed to the bathtub, just as planned. Only at this moment I'm trying not to wake my husband just in case it's false labor and I'm being a baby. Deep breaths. Hot tub. Count to 10. This isn't so bad. Okay, it's bad.  Surly I'm getting to close to 3 minutes apart. I'll check my mobile app for timing contractions that I had previously downloaded as part of my grand plan. 9 minutes apart. Dammit.  Time to wake my husband. Despite my ever growing pains and his natural instinct to get out the door asap, I have now decided to shower and fix my hair. You know,  since the photographer was going to meet us at the hospital. Just because a girl is in pain doesn't mean she can't look good. Finally,  out the door we go with my clean bouncy hair. Approximately .3 miles away from home I realized I had forgot my makeup bag, vomited partially into a plastic bag, partially down the front of my once adorable shirt, while simultaneously peeing all over myself. Okay,  who needs looks? I'm still doing okay as far as breathing through the pain and I'm about to be a mom. This is still fine. Shortly after checking into the hospital. ...it's not okay. It hurts. It hurts a lot. For the love of God, someone help me! That breathing is exactly what everyone told me...bullshit. Pure, unholy, useless bullshit. Okay, that's it. Shove that needle up my spine now! I lasted 7 out of 14 hours before, ahhh, relief. Now that I am drugged through an IV (that I also planned on not having. I was ice chips only...whatever) and an epidural I feel locked and loaded and ready to go. Within the next 7 hours of labor, all my other plans went to hell as well. Since I was vomiting with horrid heartburn and my contractions had slowed down and at some point....or 1000....I just wanted to die, I took my plans and tossed them (or rather set them on fire and danced around them as they went up in smoke) and let them get things moving.  I was induced through my IV, had my water broken, and was stretched by my midwife from 9 to 10. Thank you Lord it's time to push! 45 minutes later I am doing one thing that I planned and actually stuck to...I reached down and grabbed my baby girl and pulled her straight to my chest. She has arrived! The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I had done it! I was a mom.
     So, maybe things hadn't exactly gone to plan. Maybe all those months of dreaming the "perfect labor" were a waste of time and energy. Maybe me thinking my vagina was somehow made of steal and could tolerate such tremendous pain were nothing short of physicotic. Seriously,  how do women do that!? At the end of it all I was sitting in a room with my husband and my daughter watching cops and eating McDonald's cheeseburgers. And that, my friend, is a perfect labor story to me. Welcome to motherhood.
Sincerely,
The Mom