The beauty of pain

Sonja Dolores

I finally have done the most amazing thing a woman can possibly do- given birth.I have been looking forward to this throughout the whole pregnancy; a great endeavor on it's own. But I was so curious as to how I would handle labor and delivery.
It's funny because there are a lot of women that say to me, right before getting tattooed- If I have given birth, I should be able to sit through this tattoo. I always agreed, not really knowing the extent, but now I know there is absolutely no comparison.
For me pregnancy hurt. My back took the brunt of it, but I know most of that came from tattooing while pregnant. When I was just too pregnant to tattoo anymore which was 3 weeks before she was due, I stopped tattooing and my back instantly felt better.
So anyway, back to labor and delivery- I was hoping all the years and hours of tattooing all over my body would be some sort of preparation for birth, and it was in a way, but my labor and delivery ended up taking 36 hours so I don't think any of my tattoo pain or martial arts training would  have really helped after the first 20 hours of laboring. I breathed though it just fine until I reached 24 hours of contractions without any sleep.
The fatigue killed me, sending me into a trance to another dimension- Hell. I've been there before when getting my ribs tattooed but birthing is different, it's deeper. But the one thing that is the same with birthing and getting a tattoo is that all the pain is such a small price to pay for such beauty!
 I have now concluded that women ARE way tougher then men! Another question people ask me often at the shop.