The Best Feeling Ever?

A tingle feeling touched me as the elders talked about their experiences giving birth to their sons and daughters. One said you can’t scream, one said you can’t fight but all agreed in unison it was (is) the greatest pain they’d ever had. I just watched (and listened) to them chattering about the painful part in the labour room --> head first, then the shoulders, then the body, and finally the legs. “It doesn’t stop there,” they said. The next pain is when the nurse stitches up our ‘part’. I swear! My eyes widened visualizing it!

I can never be able to endure such ordeal! Can I???

It’s like a journey that’s too wide to measure and too long to stroll onto. You know it’s there coming yet the end path is just too mysterious to see. A slight glimpse may make you happy but to really ‘see’ it, that’s when it starts becoming complex.

I’ve heard a lot about how difficult it is raising kids; they can be blissful yet a hustle at times. I have friends complaining, how their lives have changed since the babies came. I listened, yet too scared to observe. I don’t want to judge something I have not experienced. But now, the elders are making it more complicated for me. Making me more scared in fact…

The baby cried, bringing the distressful conversations to a prompt halt. Even the worrying thoughts that crossed my mind froze with the sound of the weeping child. The elders now gathered around the little one’s bed, as I did too. She has such big eyes, sharp nose and curvy full lips. As she cried, she looked up at all the faces around her. What a beautiful baby! It’s unbelievable she lived in her mom’s womb 24 hours ago!

Her proud granny unwrapped her off her thick polka dots blanket and found her without her little socks on. She kicked them off and now she was barefooted! “Not again!” her mom exclaimed, smiling. Apparently, the one-day old baby doesn’t like wearing the thick socks! All of us laughed, finding it funny! “How smart!” my heart echoed.

All the harrowing thoughts that hunted me just now had gone. My cousin then took her baby and breastfed her. The infant was now quiet. What an amazing sight seeing a mother looking down at her tiny daughter, with a smile crept on her face. The little fingers clutched her mommy’s finger tight. Her big eyes were now closed yet her mommy still wore that proud I-am-now-a-mother smile.

“I want that feeling! I swear I want that feeling!!” my heart voiced again…