To Always Have Patience

A little over 28 years ago my parents were told that their first born would lack patience in her life. My parents consulted a “fortune teller” (no direct translation here) who suggested a few names to help the newborn cope. The newborn of course, is me and that’s how I got my name: Yung-Yi – to always have patience.

For those who know me, I really don’t have much patience…for anything. I began walking and talking before I was one-year old, was potty-trained right after my first birthday. I like to finish projects way ahead of time, not because I’m an overachiever, necessarily, but because I can’t handle waiting to have it done. I pack my suitcase weeks prior to any major trip because it makes it seem like I’d be leaving sooner. I can never sleep well the night before a major event (i.e. taking a trip, having family members visit, first day of school, etc.) and wake up several times hoping it's time. Arriving at a party “on time” means being at least five minutes early, if not 15. I want to get things started. Why wait?!

When I first found out I was pregnant, I knew that it would be nine months (give or take) until I could see/meet/hold my new baby. I was given a deadline, aka due date: October 9th. I work well with deadlines. After all, I am a graduate student and have deadlines all the time for papers, exams, fellowships, etc. Okay, October 9th – I can handle waiting nine months to meet my baby, even though I read in numerous books and was told by my doctor that only 5% of babies arrive on their due dates and 50% of them are late. Well, if 50% of them are late, then 45% of them should be early given that 5% arrive on their actual due dates. Everything seems logical and makes sense for someone like me.

Then, the doctor informed us that my due date changed to October 11th. This change does not work well on someone who does not have patience in the first place and adheres to major deadlines. Why the change? It seemed so arbitrary, and was not marked in my planner. I refused to cross out my original due date and pen in the “new one.” As far as I’m concerned, this party needs to get started.

I was super excited when the pre-labor symptoms started kicking in a few weeks ago. I needed some sort of empirical evidence or even theoretical backing that this is an indication that I would go in to labor in X amount of time. I read through my books (and I have quite a few) and consulted Internet sources – scholarly publications and mommy chat rooms. All the answers I found seemed rather consistent: pre-labor symptoms = real labor could begin within a few hours or a few weeks. WTF?!?! I'm sure you can imagine my disappointment.

Needless to say, these past couple of weeks have been the most trying in my life thus far. I have to keep reminding myself that while pregnancy and childbirth may be studied scientifically, it is, for all intense and purposes, still an art. Obviously I’m not an artist and lean more towards science and reason. But, science and reason are teaming up with art in this instance! For the time being, I just have to take deep breaths, relax and think about the origin of my name. I was given the name for a reason, and I guess it's time to live up to it...