Something Like A Mother

First we contract — and then we grow.

Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash

When people talk about labor and delivery, “contraction” is a word that will often come up. Women will recall how bad their contractions were, how frequent they were, or sometimes even marvel at how they seemed to have blocked out all the pain.

In regards to pregnancy, a contraction is when the muscles of your uterus tighten up like a fist and then relax. Contractions help push your baby out. When you’re in true labor, your contractions last about 30 to 70 seconds and come about 5 to 10 minutes apart. They’re so strong that you can’t walk or talk during them.

When we have contractions that are words, we’re combining two words to make one — “can not” becomes “can’t,” “do no”t becomes “don’t,” “we are” becomes “we’re,” and so on and so on.

A contraction is to make something smaller.

And yet, when we become parents, it’s as if our hearts grow so much that they cannot be kept within our bodies.

We contract to bring our kids into this world, yet we grow from every moment afterward.

We grow when we decide to have a baby, burying our feelings with each negative pregnancy test as we wait in joyful hope to see two little lines one day. We…