Subtitle: In which doing something that about 50% of the population can do changed me.
Ever since I can remember, when I would explain my disability to someone, she (and it was almost always she) would get a very concerned look on her face and ask me, "oh, are you going to be able to have children?" Now, there is nothing about my disability (fused hip joint, mild spina bifida) that would make conception more difficult than it is for anyone else, but certainly it was always a question in my mind whether I would be able to push a baby out through my abnormal pelvis. In fact, if I'm being honest (and really isn't that what having a blog is about?) I always just assumed I would have a scheduled c-section.
Even after all the consultations with obstetricians and MRIs and examinations and pelvic measurements, and the decision to have a "trial of labour", and being in the hospital and getting to 10cm, and labouring down, and pushing, it wasn't until I could feel and see Toby coming out that it dawned on me, Oh my god, I am doing this. I am actually delivering my baby. After all those years of saying "no, I can't" (ride a bike, snowboard, ski, run, do yoga, sit cross-legged, what-have-you), this was my "I can" moment. Feeling normal, and being treated as normal by the people around me, changed me.
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