To push or not to push.
I sit here writing this, feeling once again like a student who is rushing to do the assignment the night before its due, I started this piece back in late February/ early March before my trip back home and then life got a little busy - who knew babies were so much work eh?- week on week finishing this post dropped lower and lower on the priority list, but here we are. April has been international c-section awareness month and I want to get this out before the month is up. As I open the laptop to rewrite some of this piece there are three days left before we enter May, cutting it fine.
About midway through my pregnancy I had a conversation with a friend about her birth experience and she said something that really struck me, "it's important to grieve the birth experience you had planned for". At twenty something weeks pregnant this sounded bizarre to me because 1. My head was so high in the clouds, the idea of labour and planning for labour hadn't even entered my thoughts and 2. To grieve something sounded bleak and morbid when the baby was here and thriving, surely that was most important? Simply put, yes it is, obviously the health of the new baba is priority but with the birth of the baby is also the birth of a new woman, a mother and everything changes. Once the rawness begins to fade and you naturally slip into your new all consuming role, EVERYTHING can feel different. Your entire perspective shifts and when you sit with previous hopes or wishes that didn't come to pass I can understand why my friend said she needed to grieve her birth experience. Everything she had spent weeks planning and playing out in her mind was taken away from her.
Building the birth plan and preferences takes time. I was very naive throughout the pregnancy regarding the labour, I think a part of me didn't want to dwell on it because there was an element of fear of pain and the less I knew the better was my attitude, "I'll just do what the midwives tell me to do". What I did do however after a reassuring conversation with my midwife was to research and understand all the different pain relief options and some of the assisted delivery options. Hey, as long as I didn't have to watch any videos of women birthing babies I was happy, I like a little google research anyway.
There was so much to consider- sweeps, inductions, epidural/spinal block, a long list of pain relief options all with pros and cons for Mum & Baby, non medicinal relief options, water birth and an array of birthing positions, assisted delivery with cups or forceps and then emergency cesarean. It didn't take long for the cloud to dissipate and the reality of the final hurdle began to sink in. I took myself aside one day when I realised my head was spinning with overwhelm. After a long time sitting with my thoughts I decided the best thing to do was download a birthing plan template so I could break it all down, to make a list of questions for the midwife so anxiety didn't set in and I also needed to understand why a labour would go to an emergency c-section and what the risk factors were for both of us. I then decided with my friends words ringing in my ears, to keep an open mind. I created a well rounded birth plan and decided that although I would have loved for my waters to break and I casually slip into labour with ease like they do in the movies, I understood this was unlikely and made my peace with alternate delivery options.
I'm writing this in hindsight with a clearer head over four months after my baby's birth. I like to think that I would have appreciated to read something like this in the lead up to my grand finale, maybe it would have offered a little insight. Giving birth is a life changing event for every woman, it's not an easy thing to do, it's beautiful and terrifying at the same time, it's an overwhelming rush of emotions regardless of whether you are pushing, planned section or an emergency cesarean. My advice to any expectant first time Mama would be this: educate yourself on what you would like to happen, ask the questions but don't set all your intentions on that plan, leave room for other possible scenarios, play them all out in your head and be open to last minute changes so you don't have to "grieve" your birth experience. At the end of it all the health of you and your baby are what is important. There are such a mixture of emotions in the days and weeks after the birth and every emotion is heightened. It took me by surprise, the quickness that laughter can turn to tears or a simple thing like someone making you a hot cup of tea at 3am when you haven't slept can bring on your ugliest crying face and a flood of tears. In those days and weeks after the birth you don't want to be struck down when your mind settles and you begin to dwell on what you had hoped for. I'm glad I kept an open mind, because everything I had thought would happen for me quickly changed once labour became serious and I had a very different experience than I had imagined when I walked into the hospital that morning.
Also, I'd like to mention I didn't remain a wimp at the end of the pregnancy I in fact watched "one born every minute" and cried at the telly with the joy and beauty of the whole experience for those women.
