Have you heard the expression, "Having a child is making a decision to let your heart walk around outside of your body for the rest of your life," ? I first heard it many years ago, back when having a child was just an amusing thought- something that I would surely do someday, when I was much older and got around to it. Even then, though, the words hit me like a ton of bricks. What a poignant way to express the intensity of having a child.
I've thought about these words often over the years, and of course never more frequently than now, with Baby H's immanent arrival no more than 14 weeks away. What a terrifying thought- that no matter how safe you try to be, no matter how carefully you try to shield them, there are some circumstances in which it is impossible to protect your children. Whether it be from bodily or emotional harm, at a certain point you are limited in what you can do to save your child.
I got my first very small taste of this phenomenon last week during a routine 8th grade lunch duty. Now, for those of you that have never had the pleasure, lunch duty in a school is a special affair. Somehow, I have been blessed with this assignment for the past seven years- hall duty is a distant memory. While the sheer grossness of these adolescents eating is enough to turn even the most iron of stomachs (ranch dressing is the condiment of choice on their school pizza) I have begun to develop an immunity to what I observe during this, the students' only free time during the day. I have a vivid memory of my first year of teaching, when, upon seeing a student holding a chip bag in a strange way, I gave him a quizzical look and was told, "I poured my milk into my chips." As I blankly told him to go throw it away, all I could think was, "This is my life. This is what I do for a career." But now, almost nothing shocks me.
I have witnessed two food fights over the years- one on "Breakfast for Lunch Day" (syrup is particularly fun to throw, it would seem) and many regular fights, as lunch seems to be the choice time to throw down when you are 13 years old. Last year, in trying to break up a fight between two eighth grade boys, I got blood splattered all over me and had to go to the workman's comp doctor to be checked out... always fun. (Okay, that did freak me out a little. Okay, a lot.)
As my pregnancy has advanced I have continued to monitor the kids during lunch time, walking up and down the aisles, in the beginning of the school year trying to suck in my tummy and keep from puking from the absolutely foul odors of cafeteria food mixed with Axe Body Spray and pubescent musk and more recently fielding questions from kids as to the gender of the baby (at least twice a day I'm asked, along with whether I will name the child after them- "Of course Chyna/Akershita/Jasiah/insert random ethnic name here" or if they can be the Godparent. Okay, and don't judge me, but lunch duty is where I do my Kegal exercises. I said DON'T judge me! It makes the time go by faster and I feel as though I'm doing something productive. Plus, if I sneeze, there is less of a chance of peeing my pants in front of an entire grade level.
I also have used the time to run through multiple "bad situation" scenarios that would need to be avoided in my condition. First, helping to break up a fight is out of the question. I know that if there were a skirmish, I'd have to resist that teacher-ly urge to run to pull the kids off of each other- it's just too dangerous. I'd have to help out by doing crowd control over the microphone, or something else from a distance. In the case of a food fight, I'd need to just leave the room entirely. These things escalate really quickly and it wouldn't be worth it to be hit with something harder than spaghetti. I've even planned my escape routes depending on where I was standing when stuff started to go down.
So here I am, thinking that I'm being responsible by considering all of these scenarios where I could protect myself and my baby. And then, last week, while simply dismissing a table at the end of lunch, a student pushed back from his chair a little too quickly and clumsily and elbowed me. In the stomach. Hard.
I immediately clutched my stomach as tears sprang to my eyes and students looked on, horrified. It was as though the wind had been knocked out of me- partially from the hurt and mostly from the shock. It had happened so fast- there had been no way to prevent it. Of course the child hadn't meant it, and you could tell that he felt terrible, but I didn't even have it in me to assuage his guilt and fear... I was too wrapped up in my own. The kids are just so big (especially so now that I'm not wearing heels to work) and have so little control of their bodies that something as innocent as getting up from a table turned dangerous.
A teacher friend called the nurse for me and with her, I filled out an incident report. I called my doctor and she eased my fears, telling me to monitor for bleeding, cramping and movement of the baby. Everything was just fine- Baby H returned to jumping bean status after the initial shock wore off and by the end of the day I wasn't even sore anymore. The sheer shock of it all stayed with me though, and continues to stay with me.
My wonderful administration has instructed me to stay up front in the lunch room, away from the kids and their uncontrolled limbs, and I have certainly been keeping my distance. I'm even more careful now as I walk down the hall, and try to avoid crowds at all costs.
All this being said, I am still wrapping my mind around how quickly the whole incident took place and how little control I had over it. And let's face it- this was a mere blip on the radar of things to come. How many more times in my life will I have no control over what will happen to Baby H? I mean- the child is inside my own body right now and I couldn't protect him/her. The future holds falling off of bikes, bullies at school- and how do you hand over keys to a car to a child who barely has more bodily control than my little angels at lunch duty? I know these are not new questions and I also know that there is only so much you can do and should do to protect your child. To keep your baby (whether 26 weeks or 26 years old) from any type of discomfort is not possible and also not healthy- for you or the child. There is a certain amount of character building that comes from learning to stand up to a bully, from having to eat food that is unfamiliar, from having to cry yourself to sleep sometimes. I just know that my heart will break, though, every time I am not able to step in a save the day.
So where do you draw the line?
So much to learn, Ladies. So much to learn.
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