Notes from an iPhone

these are notes i’ve been keeping. they’re raw and unedited. just typed up in notes on my iPhone and emailed over.

Tuesday June 15th 6:18pm

I’m laying here in a hospital gown that I didn’t even know how to put on. Do they all have just one arm hole? I don’t believe I’ve worn one before. I was in the hospital in college. I thought I was dying from this pain in my stomach. But I think I refused to put one on. I tried to refuse the IV, but when they told me they needed it to administer pain meds, I happily Obliged. Free high? I’ll take it any way you’re doling it out. We planned on a birth center birth, so I guess this is like course correcting. The universe was giving me a hospital stay no matter what. I have no idea what’s going on with my baby right now. Tht is terrifying. But I have to find comfort in the chance that everything is alright.
There was little hope in my midwife’s voice, and if you ever met a natural birth advocate, you know they’re about as comforting and calming as they come.
If I go with her, I’m fucked.
If I go with the hospital (as an idiot) I would assume there’s no reason for alarm, since they’ve let me sit here for nearly 2 hrs.
If I go with my gut, i’m just hungry.

I never feared childbirth, again, this is natures way of forcing me into intense fear. I’ve never been so scared in all my Life.

Wednesday June 16th 4:31am

I’m never going to sleep again. but I know that sounds ridiculous. I told Jim we could promise one another that we’d wake up today and put this behind us, move on. Then I woke up howling tears because I remembered, everything is still inside of me. I don’t want to say the baby. At 7 wks, just an embryo. And to think we were imagining the little hands and feet moving by now. no hands and feet. That brings me comfort.

I knew.

Wednesday June 16th 10:41pm

my cramps hurt so much. But I want to feel them. I didn’t want pain meds or any intervention for lemon’s birth. This too, I want to feel. I need to experience this. This is part of the process. Except that in the end, rather than being handed 7 pounds of beautiful joy, I’m left with nothing but the hope that one day soon, we can begin again.