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altarflameI think about birth more and more. About reading Hypnobirthing and listening to the CD and doing the visualizations. About going to Boston and attending Nancy's childbirth classes. About having the right posture and the right chiropractic adjustments so that her position will be just right. And then I also think about not reading or studying or giving a shit, and having a frappuccino if I want one, because in the end it's an involuntary physical process and you can't stop the baby from coming out regardless. Sometimes I think that the only thing I have to fear, is fear. Which can actually impede your progress enough to make things much harder. That should make me feel very relieved, since fear is intangible and unnecessary. But if it can really have such negative consequences, how am I supposed to not be afraid of it?
Then I think, what am I afraid of? Dying. Or the baby dying. Ok, people don't just up and DIE having babies/being born - specific (and very rare) things have to go wrong (and, often, totally undetected, which is unlikely in my situation), I tell myself. So what in particular is it that I am worried could happen? For some reason I've realized I have this fear that my heart won't be able to handle the stress and intensity of labor and birth and will suffer some sort of thrombosis or embolism or something. I don't know where I'm getting this, except that I have low blood pressure, had scarily low blood pressure after my 3 days of Jake labor + c/s blood loss, and it would be the sort of undetectable thing that somehow explained why all my previous surgical deliveries were somehow necessary and valid after all. Yet, HELLO, after 4 major surgeries and all the OB and midwife care I've had in the past few years, someone would have picked up on it if I had any sort of heart condition or problem. My sister DOES have diagnosed heart conditions and had a natural birth just fine. I was never aware of my heart during my labor with Jake, either, and she says the same of her experience with Brian.
I think I'm afraid, more than anything, of someone pulling back the curtain and shoving me into the OR. Like, destroying this illusion I have that I could actually birth a baby naturally and leading me back to the reality of green tiles and a baby behind glass where I am not allowed to touch it. That Nancy will give me a few hours, nothing will happen, and she'll say "We really need to go to the hospital" and I'll get there and they'll seal off all the doors and rush in a team of people with forms to sign and masks on their faces. Everyone will speak right over my head as if I wasn't there, as the feeling fades from my lower body. But I will have "done all I could", since I searched so long and traveled so far.
I have these very lucid moments of confidence, these crystal clear epiphanies wherein I KNOW I can do this, and also that it is not even some amazing accomplishment; I am just a woman, and women give birth. Our bodies are designed to conceive, carry, deliver and feed babies. My body would not grow something that would then remain stuck inside of it forever; that's just silly. These are great moments, some longer or more powerful than others, but then something so simple - the mention of some other person's complication, the idea of how big this baby could end up being, the very idea of how hard it was to find ANYONE who believed in me this time around - will end it very abruptly.
The good news is that they come more and more often. I feel like it will be good for me to get some time totally alone, in Boston, to just...think and feel? Listen to music? Write stream of consciousness with nobody around to interrupt? Pray and study? I don't get a lot of totally alone. It's easy for me to avoid and deny, here in this house with seven other people and an endless stream of responsibilities. The moments of clarity are like pinpoints of light in this haziness I otherwise exist in, birth-wise, which is full of doubt, confusion, an urge to make this happen through copious planning and preparation alone, and, most of all, general avoidance of honest thought of any kind.
And when they come, I feel like jumping up and down screaming, or spinning in circles laughing. It's just so good. To imagine. It's like one more link in this long, long chain of patterns and intertia that I'm breaking bit by bit since high school. I want a newborn picture that is not strangers' hands in latex gloves holding my screaming baby aloft in a freezing cold, sterile room. I'd like a picture of myself without 50,000 things hooked up to me. I'd like to actually break through the gauze of precedent and reach down and feel my baby emerging from my body on it's own (!), real and alive. And to maybe be able to stand up the next day.
We leave so soon. Once I go to sleep and wake up, I'll be saying 13 days til we leave.
Then I think, what am I afraid of? Dying. Or the baby dying. Ok, people don't just up and DIE having babies/being born - specific (and very rare) things have to go wrong (and, often, totally undetected, which is unlikely in my situation), I tell myself. So what in particular is it that I am worried could happen? For some reason I've realized I have this fear that my heart won't be able to handle the stress and intensity of labor and birth and will suffer some sort of thrombosis or embolism or something. I don't know where I'm getting this, except that I have low blood pressure, had scarily low blood pressure after my 3 days of Jake labor + c/s blood loss, and it would be the sort of undetectable thing that somehow explained why all my previous surgical deliveries were somehow necessary and valid after all. Yet, HELLO, after 4 major surgeries and all the OB and midwife care I've had in the past few years, someone would have picked up on it if I had any sort of heart condition or problem. My sister DOES have diagnosed heart conditions and had a natural birth just fine. I was never aware of my heart during my labor with Jake, either, and she says the same of her experience with Brian.
I think I'm afraid, more than anything, of someone pulling back the curtain and shoving me into the OR. Like, destroying this illusion I have that I could actually birth a baby naturally and leading me back to the reality of green tiles and a baby behind glass where I am not allowed to touch it. That Nancy will give me a few hours, nothing will happen, and she'll say "We really need to go to the hospital" and I'll get there and they'll seal off all the doors and rush in a team of people with forms to sign and masks on their faces. Everyone will speak right over my head as if I wasn't there, as the feeling fades from my lower body. But I will have "done all I could", since I searched so long and traveled so far.
I have these very lucid moments of confidence, these crystal clear epiphanies wherein I KNOW I can do this, and also that it is not even some amazing accomplishment; I am just a woman, and women give birth. Our bodies are designed to conceive, carry, deliver and feed babies. My body would not grow something that would then remain stuck inside of it forever; that's just silly. These are great moments, some longer or more powerful than others, but then something so simple - the mention of some other person's complication, the idea of how big this baby could end up being, the very idea of how hard it was to find ANYONE who believed in me this time around - will end it very abruptly.
The good news is that they come more and more often. I feel like it will be good for me to get some time totally alone, in Boston, to just...think and feel? Listen to music? Write stream of consciousness with nobody around to interrupt? Pray and study? I don't get a lot of totally alone. It's easy for me to avoid and deny, here in this house with seven other people and an endless stream of responsibilities. The moments of clarity are like pinpoints of light in this haziness I otherwise exist in, birth-wise, which is full of doubt, confusion, an urge to make this happen through copious planning and preparation alone, and, most of all, general avoidance of honest thought of any kind.
And when they come, I feel like jumping up and down screaming, or spinning in circles laughing. It's just so good. To imagine. It's like one more link in this long, long chain of patterns and intertia that I'm breaking bit by bit since high school. I want a newborn picture that is not strangers' hands in latex gloves holding my screaming baby aloft in a freezing cold, sterile room. I'd like a picture of myself without 50,000 things hooked up to me. I'd like to actually break through the gauze of precedent and reach down and feel my baby emerging from my body on it's own (!), real and alive. And to maybe be able to stand up the next day.
We leave so soon. Once I go to sleep and wake up, I'll be saying 13 days til we leave.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 08:43 am (UTC)Right as I started pushing with Xan I was OVERWHELMED with fear. I'm not even sure of what, exactly. My fear wasn't my own death, but his. Not from anything specific, just that upon leaving my body he'd either be dead or die. When I broke down the fears and really thought about them I couldn't point it to any 'cause' like prolapse or some sort of heart condition. Just that he'd -- boom -- be dead. That's all.
When I started pushing I freaked and almost screamed out to call the paramedics. I just wanted hands to hold and someone to take the blame if the baby came out dead, or rather to tell me that I was doing okay. I have a huge amount of guilt for so many reasons and that's where the majority of my fear came from. Once he crowned, it went away. It was like "this is happening now, and it's okay" - it was going on without me, without me even trying, so it didn't matter if I was scared because it's just going to happen and that's okay.
I think you might find the same thing happening to you. This goes... no matter if you're scared or not - because this is how life works. You're going to go into labour, have a labour full of support and knowledge and care, and then have a baby. All of this regardless of your fears.
I'm thinking a lot about you, and your birth. Don't forget your necklace.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 04:11 pm (UTC)Thank you, this comment helps me.
thoughts
Date: 2007-03-14 01:20 pm (UTC)There's really only so much you can prepare for - the actual experience is never quite what you expect and I think part of the preparation we do is to allay our fears beforehand, not necessarily to make the birth 'perfect' or without fear. Sure, some people have these kinds of births I guess, but having moments of fear during labor and birth isn't necessarily going to cause problems. I think a problem would be more likely caused by non-acceptance of fear - or trying to deny its existence.
Expect nothing, prepare for anything, as the old Samurai saying goes.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 03:15 pm (UTC)I'm really proud of you and how hard you're working to be able to have the birthing experience you so desire. So many women would have just accepted that after so many cesareans they have to just schedule another one. And many possibly embrace that because it's the known factor and the doctors aren't terrifying them with the what-if's of another cesarean the way they would be with the what ifs of a vbac. I draw a lot of inspiration from you and what you're going through and I really admire your tenacity and determination. I also completely understand your fears. I just wanted you to know that I think you're awesome and that I have every confidence that you CAN do this.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 03:39 pm (UTC)That icon is really how it feels to me. Something they did the last time actually caused my pubic hair to extend up too high - like they pulled the wrong skin or too much of it. It's so mortifyingly nasty and weird to me that anytime I think of it, I think of electrolysis for after this birth - which is SO far outside my normal range of things.
Anyway, sorry for venting at you :p Jackson was so bad - Grant is on orders that if I'm ever bleeding to death, he's to drive PAST there on the way to a real hospital.
Thank you, for everything you said. I hope everything goes well for me on some level just so you can see it all go well, if that makes any sense.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 05:01 pm (UTC)