Last weekend, the whole family got up early to stand on a rainy street corner in Long Branch NJ to cheer my brother-in-law on as he did his first marathon. We didn’t exactly know when he’d get to where we were standing so we parked ourselves underneath an umbrella and clapped and cheered for random marathon runners and yelled things like, “Way to go!,” and “Good job!” and “Keep it going.”
I found myself in prolonged awe of those who would push themselves to the limit physically by choice. Faces whizzed by, men in their 50’s in sleek Nike running gear, girls in their 20’s with bouncy, high ponytails, hairy chested men wearing thick gold chains and a guy that seriously looked like he was 100 years-old. The last thing I would choose to do is push my body to the point of feeling like my heart is going to beat out of my chest or that at any moment I could lose control of my body. As I continued to clap, cheer and woo hoo (I now admit freely that I am a woo girl), it then dawned on me that I had done something like this, three times.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I always brought a pad of paper of different questions of things I was anxious about. At an appointment during my sixth month, I asked what my recovery time would be like if I had a vaginal birth. My OB told me that after I gave birth I would feel like I had just run a marathon. The memories came back to me like a tidal wave, the sweating, panting, heart beating out of my chest, physical burning sensation in my lungs and finally, the complete and utter loss of control of my body until, in what seemed like an instant, I was holding a baby in my arms.
I found myself in prolonged awe of those who would push themselves to the limit physically by choice. Faces whizzed by, men in their 50’s in sleek Nike running gear, girls in their 20’s with bouncy, high ponytails, hairy chested men wearing thick gold chains and a guy that seriously looked like he was 100 years-old. The last thing I would choose to do is push my body to the point of feeling like my heart is going to beat out of my chest or that at any moment I could lose control of my body. As I continued to clap, cheer and woo hoo (I now admit freely that I am a woo girl), it then dawned on me that I had done something like this, three times.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I always brought a pad of paper of different questions of things I was anxious about. At an appointment during my sixth month, I asked what my recovery time would be like if I had a vaginal birth. My OB told me that after I gave birth I would feel like I had just run a marathon. The memories came back to me like a tidal wave, the sweating, panting, heart beating out of my chest, physical burning sensation in my lungs and finally, the complete and utter loss of control of my body until, in what seemed like an instant, I was holding a baby in my arms.
While I never got a medal and there was never a finish line full of people cheering me on and saying woo-hoo, I’ll take my 3 experiences with childbirth over an actual marathon any day.
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