The Hard Road

No matter how it looks on the outside, I honestly feel like everybody has to take a hard road at some point in life. Some we take by choice and some we are chosen for. Either way, hard is hard. Just know nothing lasts forever, easy or hard. Breathe and step by step, breath by breath, moment by moment you push through it all.

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I got to a point when I was birthing my second child that I realized I had to finish the labor with no pain medicine. I wasn’t mentally prepared for that and attempted to get up and leave the room. I remember telling the nurse “I can’t do this. I can’t, it’s impossible. I have to go.” She looked at me and said. “There’s nowhere you can go to get away from pushing through this. You can do this.”

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Delirious with anxiety and pain, I still did not believe her. I tried harder to get up, but was hooked by belts, monitors, lines, etc. I cried out of frustration and turned my head away from her. The beach was just on the other side of the window. If only I had wings.

The nurse positioned herself in my sight line, blocked that window and squared her eyes on mine. “You don’t have a choice.”

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Breathe and push through.

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Since then, I’ve had two additional natural childbirth experiences. After I was able to do it once I knew I could do it again. That’s the grace of the hard road, once it’s behind you it’s no longer the same intensity. Even if you come up on it again, you’ve already done it before.

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So I have had to tell myself that very same thing the nurse told me on many occasions in my life outside of the delivery room.

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Sometimes there is nowhere you can go to avoid pushing yourself forward on a hard road. Regardless if you feel you had a choice, surrender to the truth that you were made for that road, in this moment. Breathe and push through.