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| Barb Polan Barb’s Recovery |
Our son recently turned 30, but we weren’t able to celebrate it properly until yesterday, when his future in-laws threw a joint birthday party for him and his fiancée (who will turn 30 in a couple of days).
The birthday and the celebration have made me reminisce about the circumstances of his birth. Tom and I were 27 and 26, respectively, when Brian was born; no wonder we look so young in his baby pictures.
At the time, I was pretty small, Brian was on the big side (8 lbs, 10 oz), and he’s my first-born, so labor was a bear. I am not at my most charming when scared and in pain. Tom, on the other hand, calmly held my hand and encouraged me to breathe as taught in our natural-child-birth class. It irked me, given that Tom hadn’t bothered to learn when to use which breathing pattern, and, in the middle of labor, I didn’t remember, although I HAD bothered to learn when to use them.
So, there’s the back-story – me in pain, and irked. AND there were no clean bedpans when I had to pee, but the nurses wouldn’t let me out of bed because my water had broken before getting to the hospital; the nurses told me to wet the bed and then they rolled me back and forth on the bed so that they could replace the sheets under me.
Obviously, I was in a foul mood.
It was about 9 a.m. when Tom started telling me that the baby would be born by noon, that it all would be over soon.
From my point of view his opinion had no basis in reality – Tom was an engineer and knew nothing about child-bearing. His was a completely unfounded declaration, the equivalent of guessing, lying, bullshitting, or blowing smoke – whatever. That irked me even more, and my response was not polite. What did his opinion matter, when he had no idea what would happen?
And he kept repeating the noon deadline while I whined and struggled to remember, “Is it puff, puff, puff now?”
About 10, my own ob/gyn came on duty and into the birthing room. After completing her evaluation of the situation, she stepped back, clapped her hands together once, glanced at the clock, beamed a smile, and said, “This baby’s going to be out by noon.”
Now, I felt relief to know that the labor was not going to continue all day, or 24 hours or longer than I could stand. I could make it until noon.
When Tom saw how encouraged I was at the doctor’s statement, he was a bit offended.
“But that’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”
At the time, to me, encouragement could go two ways: unfounded, it could be negative, but with any basis in reality, from an expert, it could work.
It’s only since the stroke that my opinion has shifted, that I see encouragement as a reflection of another person’s faith in me.
When I was in stroke rehab, the cheerful optimism of my therapists was in contrast to the serious headshaking of the physicians. I finally concluded that good cheer was in a therapist’s job description, while analytical realism was in the doctor’s. It took a while to overcome my bias toward the acknowledged experts, but eventually I voted for believing the therapists.
When I went to my first post-stroke visit, my kindly PCP greeted me:
“After looking at your MRI, I never expected you to walk into this appointment.”
And later in my appointment, he said, “… there will always be some residual effects of the stroke.”
But all along, my therapists had been telling me I had a good chance of complete recovery – given my “youth” and my attitude. Again, I have decided to believe them, not my doctor. That’s what encouragement has done for me – helped me believe in myself.
BTW, Brian was born a little early – just after 11 – delivered by forceps after some trouble with his heart rate.
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