The Happiest Day

Whoever said it was the happiest day of their life lied to you.

The day one births new life into the world isn't happy. To call it such is to downplay it into near nonexistence. A singular emotion cannot sum up such a day as that, and I'd argue that it is not the day of birth which is happiest, but the day after (in the case of a healthy child and mother, of course). Yes, the day after is happiest... but the day of?

No.

To understand the day of birth, one must rewind several months (several years in the heart of one longing for a child, but we'll just go back the months for the sake of keeping things concise).

It all begins with a day of reckoning, for better or worse, when two little pink lines appear on a pregnancy test. No matter where the test is taken, Walmart bathroom or villa in the hills of France, the world stops spinning for those few seconds, as you stare into an unpredictable, terrifying, splendid future. The moment stretches, and you are surprised when you don't just fall into eternity right then and there. But then, inexplicably, life goes on.

And you feel, for all the while you carry that life inside of you, like a spectator-- removed from who you were before. You're changed somewhere in the deepest part of yourself.

Now, I've always said God made pregnancy miserable, else we'd never get over the fear of birth itself. Such palpable terror that courses inside oneself at the thought of delivering a babe is unlike any other I've yet to encounter.

But, if you're anything like me, you'll be sick before those two little lines even appear. You'll hate food you used to love. You'll be angry. You'll weep without any reason at all. You'll feel suddenly, terribly out of control of yourself. And as the months stretch, as your everything stretches, weaving webs of womanhood down the lengths of your stomach, your thighs, your hips... you'll begin to feel better. You'll begin to enjoy some secret power, some fragrant flaunting of fertility, some delight at the brows that raise, at the quiet knowledge of just how you made that little life now growing inside. But of course, just when you begin to enjoy it-- the pains will begin.

They'll start small.

First, a twinge in your leg when you've sat too long.

And then, if you keep sitting, a hemorrhoid might appear.

You'll be bothered, but hey-- that's the cost of motherhood, you'll tell yourself.

They'll go away after the babe is born, you'll tell yourself.

Then comes a different pain, a toll wrought by the weight of carrying another being inside oneself: back pain. It starts with a minor twinge now and again, then settles into a permanent ache, only alleviated if your partner is so gracious as to come behind you and settle arms under the weight, to lift it off of you, if only for a moment. When you're nearing your time, but still too early to feel it safe, you'll begin to have the birth pangs: a tightness in the center of you, a pressure and pulling, the sensation on sharp claws running down the inner walls of your abdomen. You'll think, surely, this is it? Surely, that was real. So, you'll begin to panic. You aren't ready for this.

And God knows.

Yes. That pain wasn't enough. You haven't suffered enough to wish for the earth-rending, tearing pain of birth.

So, you'll continue, pains mounting, ever-growing like the child inside of you, for another two months.

On the last week, you'll be bitter.

What a fool I was, you'll think. What liars they were to have espoused the 'beauty of pregnancy', you'll think. Glowing? MY ASS, you'll think. If you are like me, your feet will swell, your breasts will ache, full to the point of bursting, the skin on your belly will be taunt and tight and those motherhood lines will scream and scream as you work lotion into them in vain. And yet, somewhere inside of you, you'll begin to feel it: a strange pleasure in the pain. There will be a rightness to it, and so the true ache will begin, when you stop fighting against it, when you fully lean into the power of the pain when you admit to yourself and to God almighty that you're ready for real work to begin-- whatever the cost. You're ready.

And so begin the contractions. The shifting. The sensation of fullness to bursting. The unwavering knowledge that you will do what must be done. Your mind and your body will join and the world will, once again, cease to spin. There is only you, only the raw, wretched, wonderful pain, only the child in that moment. God help your partner then, if they make a nuisance of themselves. For they'll not realize it isn't you they're talking to. You'll have become some other. Some creature fed only on sensation, on desire, on pain. You'll speak in a new voice, then. You'll utter words and shrieks you didn't know lived inside the very center of you, dormant all this time until this singular awakening... or... if you're like me.. You'll hold that all inside: a tempest in the heart of your soul. You will be silent. The room will be silent but for the quiet exhalation of breath. You will know the truth. You will do what must be done. And so, as your body stretches and tears, you'll cling with vise fingers to the bed-sheets, your eyes will scream with silent determination as you cleave that little life from you, as you force your most precious possession outside of yourself and so give it to the cruel world to hold. Then comes the shattering of the silence, the moment when the world clicks back into place and begins to turn once more: A cry, defiant, powerful. The warriors cry that screams from tiny rosebud lips, shouting triumph, echoing down the corridors of time: I. am. here. And when the child is placed upon your chest, they'll be warmer than you imagined. They'll be the missing piece of you--the piece you just tore out. And you'll know, then, that you'll never be the same again, because now the biggest piece of your soul lives on the outside. So, you will not be happy, no. You will feel everything all at once: fear. Pain. Longing. Love beyond reckoning. Worry. Anger at the world your soul must now live in. Sadness, because you have come to an ending along with the new beginning. And yes, happiness. You will feel happiness.

But whoever told you it would be the happiest day of your life is a liar.

Those come after.

Those come when you realize that cutting a piece of your soul out and letting it run about the world isn't such a bad thing, after all.

The happiest day is the day they place a tiny hand on your cheek and coo the love you let out right back into your heart.

And then, you'll know.

It was worth it.