The final countdown.
I'm reading birth stories from women who managed to get through their labours with minimal difficulty, and trying to imagine my own zen delivery. I realized that I have a lot of traumatic baggage (repressed though) from Josh's birth, where nothing went as I had hoped and I ended up in a hospital with all kinds of interventions.
We went to our first prenatal class last Tuesday and the instructor showed a video of women coping through their labours. I tried to keep it together, and be all, "I'm the seasoned mother and midwife employee here - this is all fine with me" but that was bullshit. I couldn't keep the choked up feeling out of my throat or the tears from coming. I know that deep down I'm really scared. I'm trying to relieve some of that by overdosing on the orgasmic birth stories and the hynobirthing cds and the comfort of Ina May, but it's all still in my theoretical. The thing about labour is, you can't really get ready for it. It's like parenthood itself - you have to get in there and do it to figure out how to do it well. Shitfuckers.
Last night I retreated to the bedroom to read and be calm and fill my head with images of releasing and opening and being patient and trusting my body - all that stuff. Then I sneezed and peed all over my bed. Except, I didn't know if it was pee at first - it was just this giant gush of fluid beneath me so I got up to change the bedding and realized I wasn't sure what had happened so I called down to Damien. He came up and looked at the amount and gave his best guess that it was just pee and I figured he was probably right and I still have a ways to go anyway and it's good to keep him in there until he's fully cooked and I'll keep waiting and being patient and finishing up the stuff that needs to be finished up etc etc etc.
But seriously, there are some women who describe their labours as something akin to the best sex they've ever had. Seriously. How does that happen?
We went to our first prenatal class last Tuesday and the instructor showed a video of women coping through their labours. I tried to keep it together, and be all, "I'm the seasoned mother and midwife employee here - this is all fine with me" but that was bullshit. I couldn't keep the choked up feeling out of my throat or the tears from coming. I know that deep down I'm really scared. I'm trying to relieve some of that by overdosing on the orgasmic birth stories and the hynobirthing cds and the comfort of Ina May, but it's all still in my theoretical. The thing about labour is, you can't really get ready for it. It's like parenthood itself - you have to get in there and do it to figure out how to do it well. Shitfuckers.
Last night I retreated to the bedroom to read and be calm and fill my head with images of releasing and opening and being patient and trusting my body - all that stuff. Then I sneezed and peed all over my bed. Except, I didn't know if it was pee at first - it was just this giant gush of fluid beneath me so I got up to change the bedding and realized I wasn't sure what had happened so I called down to Damien. He came up and looked at the amount and gave his best guess that it was just pee and I figured he was probably right and I still have a ways to go anyway and it's good to keep him in there until he's fully cooked and I'll keep waiting and being patient and finishing up the stuff that needs to be finished up etc etc etc.
But seriously, there are some women who describe their labours as something akin to the best sex they've ever had. Seriously. How does that happen?