Is Life Like a Standardized Test?

When I first became pregnant, I proudly refused to write a birth plan. People have enough trouble planning their bowel movements; why would I try to plan a longer and more complicated process? The futility of planning the unplannable boggled my mind.

I didn't mind the idea of a natural childbirth, but I didn't mind the idea of an epidural, either, and I found the thought of a C-section only minimally frightening. I have an experienced and progressive doctor, and my hospital has the best labor, delivery, and neonatal professionals in the city. I ask a lot of questions, but they don't stem from distrust.

Nonetheless, the more I learned about epidurals, the less I wanted one, partly because of the risks but mostly because it would restrict my autonomy without guaranteeing an absence of discomfort. If I'm uncomfortable, the last thing I want is to be confined to a bed.

So I started preparing. We pumped up my husband's old exercise ball. I found an inexpensive beanbag chair. I bought my first iPod, a refurbished Nano from 2007. We hired a doula, something I never thought I'd do. When we toured the hospital, I examined the delivery room with a careful eye and asked if they all had thermostats. Indeed, I was trying to control as much of my environment as possible. But the hospital is not my environment, and while the staff are accommodating and the rooms are nice, I will not have total control, even when I'm moving autonomously.

I can only prepare so much.

More than a decade ago, I devoted hours of my time to preparing for the GRE. First, I studied from books. Then, I practiced on free software in my dorm room. After that, I practiced on a different brand of software in my college's career center.

I went through a ton of scratch paper.

I knew that the software in the testing lab would differ from the practice software; the lighting might be weird; the computer might suck; I might have to adjust the height of the monitor and maybe the sensitivity of the mouse. I dressed in layers.

The testing lab was attached to the back of a small office, which housed its gatekeeper: a gruff, middle-aged man with a greying, overgrown beard. He gave me five sheets of scratch paper, stapled together.

I asked for more paper.

"I can only give you five sheets at a time."

"What?!"

"You won't need more than that."

I was ready to deal with weird lighting, fluctuating temperatures, crappy computers, poor ergonomics, and unfamiliar text formatting. I had not prepared for some jerk to tell me that I would have to waste precious seconds of a timed test requesting more paper! I knew I would need every spare second and way more than five sheets of paper. I had practiced. I was prepared.

But we can only prepare so much.

I nervously chose my computer, adjusted the monitor, and assessed the temperature of the room. I began my test.

At the time, the GRE consisted of three sections: verbal, mathematical, and analytical. Each section was divided into randomized subsections, so we could get a verbal subsection, followed by a mathematical one, followed by another verbal one, and so on. The order was nearly unpredictable, and each subsection required a different amount of scratch paper.

Between each subsection was a short break, maybe a minute or two. I had hoped to spend those breaks collecting my thoughts. Instead, I spent them begging for paper.

I had used less than a quarter sheet on the first subsection, but I returned to the troll bridge, five pages in hand.

"You hardly used any!" the gruff gatekeeper said.

"I can only have five sheets. Eventually, I'll need all of them."

He slowly stapled five more sheets as I quietly panicked. The breaks between subsections were very short, and I feared the test would start again without me.

After the second subsection, I asked for another five sheets.

"You only used one!" he said.

I looked at the clock and back at my antagonist, my face bearing the urgency of a person in need of a toilet. He slowly handed me five more sheets.

I returned from the third subsection with my five sheets, unstapled, every white space covered in scrawl. "Told you so," I said.

Despite the fact that none of my GRE practice tests simulated a scratch-paper limit or a human antagonist, I did just fine, partly because I had practiced enough to know how much paper I'd need. But dealing with the surprise limitations was not pleasant.

Even more than the GRE, childbirth is full of unknowns, and some of them will be difficult and frustrating and impossible to control, but as my GRE practice sessions taught me, preparation might help me adapt to the things I cannot change.

Safety Maven

"You're traveling?"

It was the middle of my second trimester. My husband and I had plane tickets to visit a friend halfway across the country. I could either make the trip without telling my mom, which seemed deceptive despite years of financial independence, or let her know so she'd be in the loop.

Telling her, I realized, was an invitation to worry, but she might be more upset if I didn't tell her. So I told her.

"You're traveling?"

"It's perfectly okay to travel in my second trimester. The most alarmist pregnancy literature says it's safe. My doctor says it's safe."

"You're going to be so uncomfortable. When I traveled six weeks before you were born, for a funeral, by the way, my ankles swelled up so much that I ran for the gate."

"The baby's not due any time soon."

"What if you have the baby while you're away? Wouldn't you rather have the baby in town?"

"If I have the baby while I'm away, it will probably die. I won't be that far along."

"The airplane is full of germs! You'll be in an enclosed area!"

Ugh. Maybe I shouldn't have told her. Yes, she cares about the baby and me--a very good thing--but a person can care without acting irrationally. Eventually, I figured out a reasonable series of counterarguments.

"It's a good thing I don't live in New York," I said. My mom spent the first part of her life in New York City.

"The subway's an enclosed area, underground. How often do they clean the cars? And the tunnels are full of vermin!"

"But the metal detectors!"

"Good thing I'm not taking the train to Washington, D.C., to visit our national monuments. And it's a good thing I don't work at one of our national monuments! I'd have to pass through those metal detectors all the time."

"Those body scanners are worse."

"So I'll get a pat-down."

"Are you going to an international airport?" she asked, inquiring about foreign diseases.

"At least I don't work in Midtown. It's full of Asian tourists, and they all have SARS!"

She laughed and said I should do comedy for a living. I promised to write down our conversation, and I finally did, months after it occurred. Maybe this is my version of nesting.

But that's not the whole story. 

The day before our departure, I had really bad heartburn. In the midst of a late dinner, I threw up, only the fourth time in my whole pregnancy. Neither symptom disturbed me.

The next morning, less than twelve hours before our 6 pm flight, I woke up to spots on the skin around my eyes. That freaked me out. What if my mom was right, and something horrible would happen on this trip?

Fortunately, the doctor squeezed me in for a midday appointment. Apparently, throwing up can break blood vessels if you hurl hard enough. Of course, I was fine.

I made it through both rounds of airport security without openly referring to George Orwell. We sat in the back of the plane on our departing journey, but my seat did not recline all the way. I was very uncomfortable, but that was the worst part of our whole trip.