Since this keeps coming up. 🙂
I am not feeling any conflict about birth internally–it’s all coming from the messages people are giving me repeatedly. I think it’ll be an amazing experience unlike anything I have been through before. My research indicates that birth doesn’t have to hurt. It’s possible to breathe and relax and go with your body’s rhythm enough to let it be about intense sensation and pressure, but not pain. Does this mean that I believe it will not ever hurt me at all? Well… I don’t know. I’m working on the assumption at this point that birth doesn’t have to hurt so I’m trying to go with that idea. I don’t appreciate being told over and over that the process will hurt because if you believe something in your head you will create that reality. Right now the reality I’m working with tells me that my body is built and designed to do this, the women in my family tend to have a rather easy time of doing this, and if I keep calm and chill that this is probably going to be not painful.
I would really like it if other people helped reaffirm my position instead of arguing with it. Arguing with it will not help me or anyone else. Pain comes from fear, tension, fighting the process, etc. In our society in general we are told to be afraid of birth and I understand that the vast majority of women in America have totally bought into that mindset. I haven’t. I’m not saying anything about the experience of other people in terms of what they should/shouldn’t do/have done. I’m saying that if you think I am bat shit crazy and you totally disagree with my overly optimistic view of birth given what you went through it would still be nice if I got a pat on the head and a “I hope that works out for you.” 🙂
It’s not like I have a choice about going through birth at this point. Right now I think good and positive things about the experience. I want to keep this mindset for the next three months. Maybe after the Lizard is born I will post saying, “Wow. I’m a naive motherfucker and that shit hurt.” I’m not saying it is impossible. I’m saying that I believe that is not the only possible outcome and that I am just as likely to say, “That was really intense. I’m not sure I need to experience that again in the next year or so.” Or maybe I will say, “That was fucking awesome. Yeah, some parts were not great, but I feel like that enriched my view of the universe and I’m really happy I did it.” I’m hoping that the vote ends up in column C. 🙂
Totally. I believe that you can and will have the kind of birth you want. I’m excited for you and kind of envious of you; giving birth sounds really, really nifty. Totally a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience, except that some people get to do it more than once. 🙂
Go Column C!
(If it helps? Every time I’ve given birth it was a wonderful experience.(
(Unless you count metaphorically.)
Be as prepared as you can. Practice meditative breathing, surround yourself with love and support and you will do fine.
The “pain” I experienced with Jenna was mostly panic and fear combined with intensity. Because I already knew what it would be like with Louis, there was pressure and intensity. Stretching and remaining active helped a lot. It was no where near as bad as some had tried to prepare me for.
I say relax and enjoy the experience.
I don’t mean to argue or appear to be negative. I think we both think very similarly about birth. And I think, since I did have a totally unmedicated, non-hospital birth, I get some points for experience. 🙂 You are right, our bodies are meant to do this, and will do it. That attitude goes a long way.
My experience with birth is that it doesn’t feel like anything else. People call it “pain” because that’s the only word they have for intense sensation, but it’s not anything like any other kind of pain.
Of course, I never got to do the pushing-out part, so I can’t speak to that. But contractions are, well, contractions — a huge frickin’ set of muscles that are tightening without your volition, past the point where you feel like it’s possible to tighten it.
Oh, and the other part: it makes you really stupid. All the blood is down there where it’s needed, and there isn’t much left for your brain. And because you’re stupid, it’s easy to panic, in this totally primal animal way… and that’s the part where people start confusing intense sensation with pain, because they’re panicky and they can’t encompass what’s going on.
::Sending super amazing positive vibes your way::
Although I’m probably totally unqualified to comment (since my firsthand experience is nil), I’m going to anyway=)
I think in this culture, we are over sensitive to “pain.” What people call pain isn’t always bad, it’s just your body communicating with you. And if you’re open to listening to it, then you’re less likely to panic and go into a negative space. I know a couple people who have gone into birth with this mindset, and you know what? They came out of it with pretty much the same ideas they went in with. So I don’t think you’re just naive.
Good for you. You are an amazingly strong person, and I’ll be sending as much good energy as I can muster in your direction=)
It sounds like you’re not crazy at all about this. I am not afraid of giving birth, either, because I think the same thing…that we are meant to do it and it won’t be forever and there’s no way I know what it’s like until it happens to me.
It’s funny how when you’re pregnant, everyone has their little opinions and stories to share.
Go you!
I have no experience with giving birth, but my mum gave birth with no drugs – in fact, she had my sister at home, assisted by a Nurse Midwife (I had some heartbeat abnormalities, so I was born in a hospital). My mum says that it really didn’t hurt. She said that there was pressure, and that it was intense at times, but not painful, and mostly just REALLY exciting. She says giving birth was one of the most awesome things in her life.
My grandmother says the same thing, and she had five kids in a six-year period, so I think she would know! In fact, she absolutely refused drugs after her first kid was born because she wanted to be alert to remember the experience, in an era when that was really not the norm at all.
Hope that helps. 🙂
My mom has this story about my birth, where they went into Kaiser and the nurse wasn’t going to bother checking her dilation, because “if this is your first, you would be screaming by now if you were dilating.” Yeah. Mom persuaded her to check anyway, and she was at something like 8cm. So, no, it doesn’t have to hurt. Or if it did, mom did a good job forgetting, because I hear this story every birthday.
Sweetheart, I think you are doing an amazing job at claiming this experience as yours – and frankly, I can’t agree with you most most of the time. You have a different idea of what it means to process pain, and what pain is for that matter, than a lot of people have. That’s going to be an asset for you, and you are as far as I’m concerned a super sexy, well informed, awesome, passionate person who is as much an expert right now on her own experience as any person with 12 kidlets and 4 degrees could have.
Follow your heart. If it hurts, you will have everything you need to face that when the time comes. In the mean time, you should feel full entitled to say, “Because I’m the mama, shutup.”
“frankly, I can’t agree with you most most of the time.”
Not sure I know how to parse this part. 🙂
My mom told me I was a bit rough…first one and all, and all the stories she had then were of the ‘omg it’s going to suck’ variety. Still, the only way she knew she was in labor was that her brain stopped being able to read.
Giving birth to my brother, she said was kind of like the best sex ever variety of experience. That was the best way she could describe it. It was easy and the afterglow was amazing.
So there’s one point on the spectrum.
Me, I’m a huge baby about my monthly ‘can’t stand up straight’ cramps, but I do most non-surgical dental work without novacaine. So there’s a spectrum even for a given person relating to different types of pain.
Pain is one of the symptoms of stress/illness/whatever that is most responsive to mental influence. It responds to hypnosis, placebo, meditation, etc. I think you’ve got a very good mindset for that.
You already have experience with extreme sensation. Birth, by it’s uncommon nature, causes sensation that most people who never experience anything like it can only refer to as “pain”.
If you say it’s not going to hurt, or that you’ll be able to focus the energy from it to somewhere else, and enjoy the process, you will be able to do that.
My experience supports exactly what you are anticipating and creating. I had my daughter at home. I expected it to be intense, but I trusted my body. This was not a big philosophical decision, it just made sense to my pregnant self.
Giving birth was intense. After a while, the muscles got tired, and felt sore. It was not a foreign terrifying pain. It was familiar, like the the feeling of doing those last five push-ups. I got more confident as it went along, because it never hurt as much by the end of a contraction as I feared it would at the beginning.
Toward the end it all started moving fast, and then I just rode it. Still, it was not excruciating. It was powerful, and it took focus, but it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
About 6 seconds after she was born, I felt great. My main reaction was that this experience was so powerful, yet so *ordinary.* Women do this all the time, and always have. Incredible.
It was an experience worth having, and I’m glad I felt all of it.
I didn’t know you were a home birth person. 🙂 Neato.
Hey I totally admire the birthing peeps *because* I am terrified of doing it.
Part of me knows that it won’t be as bad for me as that other time I got pregnant, but you know… I totally think those who do it are super courageous. Me, I’m chicken.
So, just to have pitched in my two cents worth, good on you and more power to you. I agree that home birth is the way to go, and I hope it’s as awesome as it can possibly be. I’m excited for you and thinking good thoughts your way.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
I agree and have been setting my mind to that station as well. Pain comes from fear, tension, fighting the process, not understanding, losing sight of what we know. I am believing that I will have a pain free birthing experience… this does not mean I am naive enough to expect it to not be uncomfortable… but I feel my body is made* to stretch and allow for a child to come out. There was a time before epidurals, and I’m not claiming that I definately won’t have one, but I’m going to request that it not be offered to me, (I know I’ll accept the offer far before I’ll ask for it myself) and I’ll just see how it goes.
A lot of this has to do with my new-found faith in God, and I’lll just casually mention the book “Supernatural Childbirth” and leave it at that… since I don’t believe you or many of my friends at all, are on the born-again christain kick like me… but that’s a great book where the woman describes how she was able to have 3 children painlessly… she felt* the pressure… but it didn’t hurt.
Contractions are just that, muscle contractions… if you contract the muscle in your arm as hard as you can repeatedly, it’ll get uncomfortable, but it certainly doesn’t get excruciating…
anyway~ enough of my opinion-explosion
Hope things keep going great for ya!!
Yeah, really not with the born-again Christian thing. Thanks anyway and I will cross my fingers that you get the experience you want. 🙂
i’m always a bit leary
of weighing in
because i’ve no womb
to call my own…
but…
me mum always said that having a kid
(3, in all)
was nothing more than
“2 hours of hard work.”
of course,
when she broke her hip
at the age of 75
she rolled up a magazine she was carrying
and used it to pull herself
up her 50-foot long driveway
thru snow 2 feet deep
into the house
and then pulled herself to her feet
to use the kitchen wall phone
to call for an ambulance
and then sat in a rocking chair
and waited it for EMS to arrive.
it *could* be she’s a little tougher than most…
i’ve never given birth
but have made it thru some pretty tough stuff
for a guy
and have found
that doing what was needed
to reach the next moment
always seems to work best.
i trust you’ll do just fine.
My money is on you having a really intense experience, and afterwards you believing it didn’t hurt and it was awesome. My assessment at the time I was birthing was that contractions were like really bad menstrual cramps, which if you’ve never had probably points to your uterus being better connected to things than mine and likely to cause you less pain during contractions. Either way, it was completely in the acceptable/deniable/ignorable/deal-with-through-moaning category of pain. I thought it was stupid and unnecessary that it was painful at all, but for me it was. Way better than an ear infection though, but I’m a wimp about pain in my head. Most other parts of my body are much easier for me to temporarily disown. And with birth, the natural opiates and amnesiacs really are awesome. By the next day I thought I could handle another home birth in a year. So sure I believe that you can have a pain free birth.