It's 6:30 in the morning, and I'm up early, as usual, to get some work done before C and Wild Man wake up. But I've been up much longer than usual this morning, and I haven't been working. I've been worrying about labor. I'm finding it odd that I'm worried about labor with my second pregnancy since I wasn't really worried about labor when I carried Wild Man. I have quite a few concerns this time, though, and most of them are connected to my ability to have another unmedicated birth.
I'm worried because I haven't done any of the preparation I did when I was carrying Wild Man. My whole world has centered around my dissertation and taking care of my son that I haven't set aside the time to prepare my body for labor. This concerns me, and apparently, as he revealed at our most recent appointment with my midwife, it concerns C too. With Wild Man, we took Bradley Method classes, we did relaxation exercises every day for about 5 months, and I exercised daily. This time around, I've managed to start walking as the weather has gotten warmer, and I certainly spend a lot of time chasing Wild Man. Other than that, I think we've practiced our relaxation techniques twice, and I haven't done any of the ab or back exercises I did last time. I have been doing kegels quite regularly, so that's a bonus. I'm not worried about my mental ability to handle the pain. But I'm really worried about my stamina. I'm just not in the physical shape I was in when I carried Wild Man. I'm worried if I have a really long labor I'll get exhausted.
C and I talked about this some last night, as well as with my midwife. We have come up with some solutions. She thinks its fine for me to start exercising more now, and by exercising more she means taking walks. As she put it, it's a bit late in my pregnancy to start doing more than that, especially given how many braxton-hicks contractions I'm already having. C also broke out our Bradley Method book last night and started re-reading it. He asked me a lot of questions about what worked for me last time in terms of pain management, and he pointed out a few things that didn't work. Starting this weekend, I'm going to make more time for me--even if that means I set aside 20 minutes--to do my exercises. This is something that is really important to me, almost as important as finishing the dissertation. So I need to quit worrying about it and do some things to get prepared.
Showing posts with label Bradley method. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bradley method. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Unmedicated Childbirth
A good friend of mine is expecting her first child in October, and we were recently chatting about unmedicated childbirth. She asked me if I would have another unmedicated birth and if I would use the Bradley method again. I immediately answered yes; I would try for a very similar birth experience, as both C and I were very happy with S's birth. That said, my feelings about our birth experience are very complicated, and while I've happily shared the birth story with most good friends, I haven't really gone into much detail regarding my feelings of the birth. As with most of my mothering decisions, I feel very protective and almost defensive about my experience. My need to write about my protective feelings is more about me thinking through why I'm so protective of the experience rather than feeling attacked by people who disagree with my choice.
I know precisely why I am protective of my birth experience (and I say my rather than our because C and I have very different perspectives on the experience). For me the experience was completely about my family; I wanted to do what was best suited for us. While on some minute level, I did feel committed to having an unmedicated birth to prove all the people who questioned my desire and ability to do it wrong. But all of those feelings went away the minute I went into labor. I've discussed my experience with other women who've had unmedicated childbirth and women who elected to have medication. Most of these women describe the contractions as painful, and while I wholeheartedly agree contractions hurt, I'm unhappy with the word "painful." Since S was born I've been searching for a word to describe what I experienced with my contractions. Painful seems too negative, too harsh. Intense is a good word because I think intense can refer to positive and negative experiences, but painful has too many negative connotations associated with it. Perhaps I'm overly sentimental about S's birth (which is entirely possible considering the difficult days and weeks that followed not only due to having a colicky newborn but due to the death of C's dad the day after S was born), but I'm unhappy calling that experience painful. That day was anything but painful. So now I discover that I've become one of those women who wax poetic about the "pain" associated with childbirth, and I don't feel that accurately describes my experience either. It was a tense and intense day; we came dangerously close to an emergency c-section because S's heart rate was not stable. To this day, I'm not even certain how close we came as I was busy coping with contractions; C, my doula, and my doctor have all told me we were within minutes. Luckily, my doctor was able to turn S while he was inside of me (I will associate pain with that particular experience!), and he quickly stabilized. Forty-five minutes after that, my beautiful son was born. So when people ask me if I would choose another method of childbirth, I have to say no. Our method (I hesitate to say we used the Bradley method because I really believe the Bradley method encourages you to develop your own method of relaxation techniques to get you through childbirth) worked for us once, and I would happily do it again.
Writing this, I find that almost six months later, I still haven't processed that day completely. My life was profoundly changed that day in October. I also know that C and I haven't discussed it as much as either one of us would like to because S's birth is forever connected with his grandfather's death. To me death is painful; birth is not.
I know precisely why I am protective of my birth experience (and I say my rather than our because C and I have very different perspectives on the experience). For me the experience was completely about my family; I wanted to do what was best suited for us. While on some minute level, I did feel committed to having an unmedicated birth to prove all the people who questioned my desire and ability to do it wrong. But all of those feelings went away the minute I went into labor. I've discussed my experience with other women who've had unmedicated childbirth and women who elected to have medication. Most of these women describe the contractions as painful, and while I wholeheartedly agree contractions hurt, I'm unhappy with the word "painful." Since S was born I've been searching for a word to describe what I experienced with my contractions. Painful seems too negative, too harsh. Intense is a good word because I think intense can refer to positive and negative experiences, but painful has too many negative connotations associated with it. Perhaps I'm overly sentimental about S's birth (which is entirely possible considering the difficult days and weeks that followed not only due to having a colicky newborn but due to the death of C's dad the day after S was born), but I'm unhappy calling that experience painful. That day was anything but painful. So now I discover that I've become one of those women who wax poetic about the "pain" associated with childbirth, and I don't feel that accurately describes my experience either. It was a tense and intense day; we came dangerously close to an emergency c-section because S's heart rate was not stable. To this day, I'm not even certain how close we came as I was busy coping with contractions; C, my doula, and my doctor have all told me we were within minutes. Luckily, my doctor was able to turn S while he was inside of me (I will associate pain with that particular experience!), and he quickly stabilized. Forty-five minutes after that, my beautiful son was born. So when people ask me if I would choose another method of childbirth, I have to say no. Our method (I hesitate to say we used the Bradley method because I really believe the Bradley method encourages you to develop your own method of relaxation techniques to get you through childbirth) worked for us once, and I would happily do it again.
Writing this, I find that almost six months later, I still haven't processed that day completely. My life was profoundly changed that day in October. I also know that C and I haven't discussed it as much as either one of us would like to because S's birth is forever connected with his grandfather's death. To me death is painful; birth is not.
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