Kari Tyree

My daughter’s first birthday is approaching, and I’ve been remembering the day she was born. The labor and delivery experience was mostly just what I could have hoped for, but there were a couple of incidents that I wish I could go back and change (as you can read about in a post I wrote to document the experience). These lingering regrets were the topic of a recent tearful bedtime conversation between my husband and me. It may seem silly, but yes, that frustrating disappointment was still bothering me. I told my husband that I wished I could go back and fix it. True to his teacherly style (though he’s not a teacher), my husband counseled me using a metaphor I could relate to as an English major: “Why? The paper has been turned in. It’s done. Forget about it and move on!”

“But I want to turn in an addendum!” I moaned. “I want to fix the broken things.” His response was a revelation and turning point for me: “It’s not broken.” Simple.

He was completely right, of course. Why, then, had I been feeling so strongly that my labor and delivery experience was broken somehow?

My general take on life, especially tasks I feel responsible for, could fit the expression that “it’s all or nothing.” Washing with a bar of soap that turned out to smell strange? Use it all up anyway. Using cloth diapers? Better not reach for that disposable. Cleaning house? Darned if it’s not a disaster every evening when I haven’t swept, mopped, dusted, and wiped down the entire house. In other words, it’s all or nothing or I’ve failed.

But lately I’ve had to adjust my expectations of myself. Having a kid complicates things. Honestly, having a life complicates things. The cloth diapering is a good example of a responsibility that I’ve relaxed about. Sometimes a disposable is necessary or just plain easier, and using one doesn’t mean that all of the cloth diapering is wasted. We can still have the benefits of cloth even if I use a disposable now and then.

The same is true of the labor and delivery that I’ve struggled to get past emotionally. Nothing about it needed fixing. Rather, my feelings are what need some adjustment. In reality, the experience was a good one. God gave us a healthy baby. My focus has to shift as I think more gratefully than regretfully about the whole thing. Sometimes life is not “all or nothing.” Sometimes plain, ordinary “something” is enough.