Well, At Least I'm Going To Try

Over the past few months, I have been reading up on natural births. The idea of attempting a drug free labour is extremely appealing to me. I just really like the notion that my body will know what to do and when to do it. While Ricki Lake's book "Your Best Birth" is a very good read, it does a wonderful job of making hospital, drug-filled births look like hell on earth. On the flip side, she makes natural, home births seem like, instead of labour, you will simply dance through fields of tulips while angels french-braid your hair and chocolate-covered fairies will hand you your baby while Enya hushes everyone with a soothing lullaby.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating slightly. But she really does a good job of scaring the placenta out of you by detailing all the horrifying facts about the drugs used during labour and what they do to your body and your baby. So, after reading this, I would like to at least try to go au natural. I keep telling myself that the pain alone will not kill me. Other factors, like bleeding out or high blood pressure could kill me...but the pain by itself will not.

Over the past 12 years, I have had what I like to think of as mini-contractions. I suffer from undiagnosable chest pains that, from what I've read, would be comparable to contractions. The pain is a tightening across my chest that builds and builds and builds for a few minutes until it releases and relaxes for a few. Then, the pain cycle starts all over again. These can last for up to five hours at a time and there is NO drug that can ease the pain of them (not that we've found anyways...the chest pains are a whole other post on its own). Over the next three months, I can use these chest pains to help practise how to focus my thoughts and to start talking myself through the pain. But I also know that I have a lot more reading and researching to do over the next little while.

What really bugs me is the responses I've gotten from two different women when I told them my plan. Without naming names, I'll just say they're not on my side of the family. Their response? Laughing as if I were either joking or completely nuts. And it really bothered me. One of the women has no kids and is a hypochondriac. The other has had four children. The first woman has no business having any input on what labour might be like and the second woman? Well, to her I say "to each her own". Just because you didn't feel like experiencing any pain, don't make me out to be bat-shit crazy just because I want to experience everything. Needless to say, I won't be discussing much more of this pregnancy with either of them.

I know that the best laid plans can get thrown out the window in a heartbeat. I know that if I need a C-section, I'm not going to feel guilty. I also know that I can change my mind and ask for an epidural (as long as I haven't missed the window). I know that if I am going to attempt this drug-free, I need to have a lot of support from Mike. But my point is that I want to at least try. The way I see it, if animals can give birth in the wild and live through it, than so can I.