This is my 25th journal entry! Hooray!

Did you ever witness a birth?

I have not witnessed any births in which I was not an active participant.

I have seen newborn cats, rabbits and dogs, but not actually seen the birthing process even once…well, in person anyway. I have seen the miracle of life taking place on film occasionally, and it is enough to send me screaming out the door.

I am squeamish by nature. When someone shows me a scar, my stomach turns over. When a TV show has a moment of surgery or something, and I know it’s not real, I still can’t look. I don’t understand how people can be doctors and nurses. I’m glad they can do this, but I cannot even fathom having to do that every day. I can’t even do it one time.

We took a birthing class before Lenora was born and when the baby in the video was being born, I had to look away.

We were told that I could request a mirror if I liked, so I could see the baby crowning. No, thank you. During birth, would I like to reach down and touch the baby’s head? Thanks, I’ll pass. I had no desire to do either one.

I don’t want to get into the birthing stories of any of the children here. I’ve written them all down before, and they were nice stories. Bennett unfortunately got the shaft because I wrote his on a computer that later crashed, and I haven’t been able to find a copy of it. I did upload it…to friends on an AOL message board that no longer exists. I don’t remember if I sent it to anyone else. I wish I’d been on livejournal then. I started my account later that year. I should try to rewrite his, but so much about a birth gets erased from memory so quickly! I console myself with the fact that men seem to not be as interested in this kind of thing, so at least it’s the child that will be a man one day that won’t get such a good birth story.

Although there’s the ick factor, I sort of wish I had been at one uninvolved birth at least, so I would have something to write about. I can write about just about anything, but my own children’s births are suddenly too much to even consider writing about. There was just too much to even get down in a regular once-a-day journal entry. The emotions…the activity…everything really was just too intense and alive and too much for me to do it the injustice of putting it down in here when I’m already thinking about other things I need to do.

Perhaps when I get done with my journaling adventures from the angelfire site, I’ll rewrite Bennett’s and get all three of them uploaded and backed up.

This doesn’t seem to have a really good ending, but I guess that’s just the way it goes.

In other news, I’m pretty stoked that I’ve made it to 25 and only skipped weekends and holidays.