TIVOLI JENSEN

Exactly three years ago, I was miserable.

Not with life persay, but I was physically miserable because there were seven pound children kicking my ribs.

Three years ago, I was 36 weeks pregnant.

With twins.

Looking back, the pregnancy was a bit of a morning sickness haze.  I was extremely sick, extremely tired, and extremely emotional.  I cried at nearly everything– my go-to phrase was “It’s so nice” (to be said in a half-sob, half-wail voice).  My husband didn’t know what to do with me, I was too big to go anywhere, and too bored to stay home.  I had watched all of Wings, and Parks and Rec, and Gossip Girl on Netflix.  I had eaten In ‘N Out religiously.  I had snapped at him because we didn’t have any chocolate in the house (but really, how dare he?).  I remember I bugged him a lot about packing his hospital bag, to which he always said he’d “do it tomorrow.”  And I’d never press him on the matter, seeing as how my priority was my need for sushi.

Three years ago I was fed up.  I had two weeks left of being pregnant, and I wanted it over.  I had just had my twenty-first birthday (thank God they weren’t born then), and I was in so much pain that I had to just lie uncomfortably in bed.

I went to sleep that night in a puddle of misery, too tired to cry and too hungry to stay awake.  I told Eric to pack his bag again.  He said he’d do it tomorrow.  And so, I closed my eyes.

Little did I know, that absolutely everything in my life was about to change.  I was on a great precipice of my life and I didn’t even realize it.  I am jealous of the wisdom and poetic tendencies I have now, and am angry I was too bloated to realize the fine and cosmically magnificent place I was in then.

I slept during my last hours of being a single entity, of being a person who made my lunch first, and thought of what I wanted for my birthday, and what I wanted in my life.

I slept during those last moments of my children and I breathing the same air, sharing the same body, beating hearts as one.

Sometimes I miss being pregnant.  It’s so damned beautiful– misery and all.  You don’t really forget it, you just gloss it over in polite conversation.  When you sit and think about it all, you can remember it.  Counting kicks for hours on end, rubbing endless amounts of lotions to my belly.  Taking videos of them moving within.  Thinking of what to name them, and then how I’d make fun of that name if I were a snotty kid, and then crossing that name off the list.

Baby B (now called ‘Eliott’)  liked Justin Bieber a lot.  If I played the Biebs, he’d start flipping out.  Maybe he hated him– I’m not sure.  I bet the reaction would be the same though.  The day before they were born we listened to some new song by the Biebs and the little thing fluttered.  I thought it was funny.  I resolved to video it the next day.

And the next day came.  I woke up and needed to pee.  This is completely unsurprising– there were two infants on my bladder.  So, I gathered myself up, and stood.

And in that unsurprising act, the most surprising thing happened.

I was in labor.

I believe I squeaked.  Later Husband and I had a supreme “I told you so” moment were he completely said “You were right,” and I cried a bit because it was so nice.  And it was.  You can’t hear “You were right” enough in life.

But back to that miracle of life thing.

My body, without taking me into account, had jumped off the precipice and into the unknown, and I was about to become a mother.  It was a simplistic moment of the grand Before and After of my life and I was speechless (save for the aforementioned squeak).

And everything changed.

But now I’m just thinking about how three years ago, I shut my eyes wishing so badly that it would all be over.  And wishing that I had some chocolate.  And wishing that there was a comfortable spot in the bed.

And just wishing about myself.