So I got to play on Saturday. That was fun. It was a pretty decent scene. We asked one of my dearest friends to join us and it was all happy and fun and such. Except for that crying part. That was less “happy”.
Yesterday was a complete and total roller coaster day and I think it was cause of of playing. I went between angsty and fussy and angry all day. (It didn’t help that my tummy felt awful for a lot of the day and it was 77 degrees so my body was like WTF IS IT SO HOT FOR. I don’t like warmth much.) So I try to process. Cause I’m like that.
I was irritated because yesterday the marks from the scratching (with a knife) made it really hard to sleep after playing so I got almost no sleep Saturday night. I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping on my side in one position all night anyway–having to do it on *one* side because the other side was mucho owie just caused problems.
I also found that in retrospect I had a hard time dealing with the fact that Noah and our friend were both trying to push me in terms of how much pain I could handle. When I settled into a given level of ouchie they upped it. Then upped it. Then upped it. Until I broke down crying. Then they went “ahhhhh” and stopped and were lovey and affectionate. Yesterday I felt like, “Why did you need to push until I failed?” So much of what is happening to my body right now is beyond my control and I feel like I am sucking over and over. I’m not sure it was a good thing to push things until I broke. 🙁 I still feel like a failure because I couldn’t handle what they wanted to do to me. Ok, I know that they were going to keep pushing and pushing for a long time, but in my competitive masochist sort of way I don’t like it when I have to cry uncle first. So I’m mad at me and kind of mad at them. (Not real mad. Still glad I got to play at all.)
I’m also fussy because I think I want to fire one of our birth classes. No, I don’t want to come draw a picture and tell you how I feel about it. I did that shit when I was officially crazy as a teenager and I don’t want to fucking do it now. I’m feeling really angry about the lack of information in the class compared to the amount of woo-woo crap. (Uhm, no offense to any woo-woo types reading this. If it works for you, awesome. Is not my thing.) So If feel hostile and defensive when I go. Why am I going then? Oh, we had birthing class last night and I had to go argue with them telling them that no, I am not going to be “drawing my birth landscape so I can tell you how I feel about it.” I also didn’t appreciate being told that since my big focus in birth is that I want to trust my body and my instincts to tell me what is right over the random advice of other people that I should “soften around this idea because I’m not necessarily right”. I wanted to walk out right then. Because you know what you woo-woo bitch, you are exactly who I shouldn’t listen to.
And Noah wisely pointed out yesterday that I probably shouldn’t have any more lumps of lard and meat (but chicken nuggets are SO TASTY) because my stomach hurt massively all day after having it. Which probably contributed to me being such a bitch.
Ok, this roller coaster of emotions is getting old. I want off. And I woke up in a foul mood. I have class tonight. Awesome.
“birthing from within” are you? 🙂
Drawing my feelings isn’t really my thing, but at least evaluating the images I had in conjunction with the assignment, and taking an honest look at what feelings I was having (including fear, territoriality, and self-focusednes) were useful for me. Like you said, you may deal with things very differently, and may not get anything out of it.
I gotta tell you….you’re going to feel more crazy pain sensations during labor than you can really imagine. I do think you have a huge leg up on a lot of people in that you, and your partner, are very experienced in after-care, and in working through things together. The only difference in this “scene” is there is no “crying uncle” in labor. 😉
For me, that “trust in my body” is what carried me through. At those moments when I didn’t understand what was happening, and my trust faltered, asking for an explanation or guidance from my doula and midwives helped get me back on that track. I didn’t mind the pain as long as I could trust that things were going the way they were supposed to.
What sort of “information” were you hoping for in your birth class?
Honestly stuff more like I get in bdsm pain processing classes with a birth focus. 🙂 How do you ride the wave instead of fighting the wave to allow you to relax efficiently and not tense up. The pain comes from tensing up and fighting the process and there are good ways to relax and there are bad ways to fight it.
More anatomical information would be awesome.
Not, “Draw a picture and tell me how you feel. I’m really damn self-aware. I spend a lot of time dealing with my feelings. That doesn’t mean I necessarily want to share them in a room full of people I am not friends with.
Hm. How far into the class are you? In mine, we did cover a whole bunch of different coping techniques, to experiment with them and see which ones seemed most effective (different focuses: internal vs external, audible vs silent, self directed vs partner led) in dealing with ice water (which SOOOOOOOOO doesn’t phase me, but wuteva). That’s annoying if your class doesn’t get around to those parts. And there should be coverage of the phases of labor, the timing of things, what transition entails, etc. So, if you don’t get that stuff, BOOOOOO!
And as for the feelings, ITA w/ not wanting to share them “publicly.” I would like to gently suggest that there could be value in answering the question for yourselves, (you and Noah) together, outside of class. Both of you.
I think the greatest value of my class came out of the conversations we had AFTERWARDS, on the way home, or the following days, as we talked about the things each of us were processing. We had some really valuable things come up that we were able to share about what we individually hoped for/feared/anticipated and were able to allay some of those fears for each other and prepare in that way.
The breathing with ice thing has been about 10 minutes of each 3 hour class. They aren’t explaining much about it, why it works, how it works, or anything else. They have us do it then we get back to drawing. We have done 2/6 classes.
The problem is that I really genuinely am not having conflict about the birth experience. I’m not afraid of it. I have no hidden/underlying shit to process about how to “get through it”. I’m really looking forward to it and I think it is going to be an amazing experience. Noah’s response seems to be fairly similar but tinged by, “Uhhh, I’m not going to be going through it so just tell me what you need.” Most of our conversations outside of the class about the class stuff have been me ranting about how much I don’t appreciate them telling me repeatedly that I need to deal with my underlying conflicts. I don’t have any. Yes you do. No I don’t. Yes you do. ….. Right now I’m really ready to say, “Fuck you” the next time she tells me that I secretly have underlying conflicts.
Oh my God. If I end up with a birthing class like that there’s going to be hair flying!
I’m feeling downright angsty lately too, but I think it’s because I *didn’t* play recently!!
I don’t know that I would recommend “Birthing from Within” then. I would, however, if you are woo woo enough to buy into it recommend HypnoBirthing. I’m getting really good solid concrete tips on stuff to do and how to do it and why to do it. It is much closer to the pain processing classes I’ve been to though it might freak the instructor out if I told her that. It’s totally about finding headspace and going with sensation. I’m really benefiting from specifics about how to do it.
HypnoBirths also statistically go much faster and having a ridiculously low cesarean rate. Both big pluses in my book. 🙂
I read about hypnobirths recently…I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying it!
I vaguely remember an anicdotal study that linked mothers having high exposure to — oh damn the hormone released when your scared that triggers fight or flight, brain not working this morning… or this week to be honest — in a particular trimester and a higher incidence of giving birth to gay sons. It was looking at German boys whose mothers had been pregnant with them during the bombing of berlin, as that generation had a much higher than average % of gay men.
(Adrenaline)
That’s neat! I don’t think I’ve had a lot of adrenaline shots during the pregnancy. 🙂
I’m sorta curious if there’s a connection there between gay <-> military being traditionally related (think Rome or Greece), adrenaline during pregnancy meaning males==good (conflict -> males -> military power -> winning) and so on. Like, maybe heterosexual males with families to go back to make worse soldiers?
The combination of that with modern constant distractions, stressful hospital birthing methods and general belief in constant stimulus might explain the current higher visible level of gay people in modern society, and why it seems to have happened faster in America than most places.
Then again, you’d expect higher numbers of gay people in places with more actual fighting, too, like the Middle East and parts of Africa, and it’s not as clear that that’s the case.