Pain is part of parenting. Physical and emotional. However, I often find the former is much easier to rate than the latter.
For example, when it comes to excruciating physical pain, two experiences immediately come to mind: Giving birth to my daughter and running my first marathon.
My labor lasted 21 hours. Unfortunately, due to poor timing by the hospital’s one and only anesthesiologist (translation: he was on break) I didn’t receive my epidural on time and thus I was forced to push out a nearly eight-pound baby in the occiput posterior position (a.k.a. “face-up” or “sunny-side up”) without the aid of the highly popular pain reliving drug. Adding insult to injury was the fact that I suffered serious tearing during childbirth and had to be sewn up, which wouldn’t have been all that traumatic, except that the doctor forgot to numb the area before he began stitching.
OUCH!
I would rate my birthing experience as a 9.5 on a pain scale. Enduring my first marathon would be a solid 7.5. I thought I was prepared to run 26.2 miles on the sunny streets of Chicago. After all, I spent four months training for the race. Fortunately, I made it to the finish line without experiencing the same searing pain in my lungs that plagued me during the 20 miler I completed during training. Feeling as though you are inhaling and exhaling radioactive acid is never a pleasant experience. Still, it wasn’t my lungs that were burning at mile 22 of the marathon—-it was my legs, which felt like heavy, wet Sequoia trees. Fortunately, running a marathon is similar to childbirth in that the memory of painful moments magically disappears once the trauma is over. In subsequent years I completed three more marathons—-minus the pain.
Of course, now that I’ve been in the trenches of parenthood for six years, I’ve learned that my past brushes with physical pain pale in comparison to the emotional suffering I endure having to stand by and watch my own child when she is in agony.
I think of my cousin as I write this. Her four-year-old daughter was recently diagnosed with cancer. I can only image the torture she feels watching her baby undergo rounds of chemo.
There is no quantifying that type of anguish and heartache.