The Real Test: Waiting on Nature

"I'm pregnant".  Well, that's not entirely true.  I think I might be pregnant.  Only time will tell.

Of course, nowadays we have access to twenty-four hour drug stores where, for $6.99, I can pick up a test that will allow me to make this definitive statement.  All I need to do is pee and wait two minutes.  Instant results.

Just like Nature, right?  Women have been peeing on sticks to test their pregnancy for thousands of years, right?  No?  Then how on earth did the mama's of old find out they were pregnant?  Hmmmm...  Maybe they had no way of knowing.  Maybe they were all in the same situation as those women on the TV show "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant".  I doubt it.  In many cultures through out history, women were taught the art of listening to their bodies.  Information on how to read the signs was passed down from generation to generation.  Women's bodies were treated with reverence.  It was understood that time would reveal.

Today's culture seems fixated on instant results.  Technological development has given us instant messaging, instant coffee and instant breakfasts.  We don't even have to wait till we get home to make a phone call, or check our email.

So in these days of fast solutions, why on earth would anyone want to wait?  Remember that reverence I was talking about?  Remember how the ancients were adept at listening to their body's signals?  To me this is an exercise in patience, but it's not just about character development.  It's about waiting for Nature to take it's course.  It's about becoming comfortable with the Nature's timing.  Anyone who's been through pregnancy before would probably agree that the birth process involves a lot of waiting.  The process of natural birth is quite contrary to our modern instant culture.  It clashes.  And those who are so used to the speed of modern life often have trouble slowing down, and waiting for the birth process to unfold in it's own due time.

This is where technologicalized birth comes in to play.  We are tired of waiting.  We decide it is time for labor to start, and we induce.  Then we decide that labor is not progressing fast enough for our tastes, and we augment with synthesized hormones.  Then we think surely the water should have broken by now, so we decide it is time to break the bag of waters.  Then we start to push, but the decent seems slow from our perspective, so we grab for the vacuum suction, and oh, this is taking too long.  We pop in the forceps, grab the baby by the head, and pull it out.

And all because the baby wasn't delivered as fast as your food on your last trip to McDonalds.  All because we have forgotten how to wait.  The first thing just about every woman does when she suspects she is pregnant is take a test.  It is the first example of women turning to technology for answers that their body would give them eventually if they would only wait and listen to their bodies.  To me the whole process of waiting to find out is exciting.  It's like reading a suspense novel as opposed to just flipping to the end.  Am I pregnant or am I not?  I guess I'll wait and see.