There are just 11 weeks to go in my pregnancy and of course, I’m beginning to think about labour and birth. I keep trying to imagine the worst pain imaginable and I simply can’t. I have experienced very few “pains” throughout my life.
I’ve never had a broken bone or any dental work whatsoever and I had stitches only once when I was less than six years old. I don’t suffer from any ailments and I’ve never had any particularly noteworthy diseases. I keep trying to determine in my head what even constitutes “severe pain” and makes it “unbearable”; is it when the pain nauseates you to the point of vomiting? Is it when you go into shock and pass out? I used to vomit with the severity of my menstrual cramps and I also vomited when my eardrum ruptured, so does that make those the “worst” pains I’ve experienced?
So I’ve psyched myself up for something completely astronomical when it comes to childbirth, in the hopes that just maybe I’ll come out of it thinking, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad”. I’m getting moderately nervous, not so much of the pain itself but moreso how I’m going to react to it. I’m worried that I’m going to have my first contraction and start screaming for an epidural, which is something that I very much want to avoid as I want to experience this incredible physiological event in it’s raw, natural state. I want to be able to trust myself and my body alone to get me through it. It’s going to be interesting to see whether I can maintain that outlook during labour, or whether I suddenly stop giving a toss about “the experience” and allow myself to have a completely medically altered labour.
I think the support people around me will have a big impact on how I cope, which brings me to my birth plan (or “birth preferences”) which I’ll share here at some point. Mum and Daniel were in absolute hysterics reading it (especially the “allow me to eat please” comment) and mum in particular was surprised that I’d prepared a document “barking orders” at my doctors. I’m personally more surprised that some people still consider it the norm (or acceptable) for a woman to be pushed into a maternity ward in a wheelchair, immediately injected with all kinds of IV drugs, restrained to a bed with various fetal monitoring systems and then set back with her legs up in stirrups to push out her child.
Everything is going well with us now. The baby is estimated to weigh 1200-1300 grams, which is almost 3 pounds. He’s in the 50th percentile, which means he’s bang on average as far as growth is concerned. I used to weigh 45kgs (99lbs) and now weigh 52kgs (114lbs). I’m feeling him move on a very regular basis; that’s one thing I’ll definitely miss after I’ve given birth. It’s one of the most incredible feelings.
