It's incredible how I can start to feel this third trimester set in...how immediately I can feel a difference in circulation and movement as my body continues to change. My belly has started to move on the outside when Lelu kicks, and I can definitely feel some growing pains as she puts on weight and my belly expands. Dustin said today he wishes he could fix the uncomforts, and I told him I didn't want him to. She is growing exactly as she should and it's all part of the process.
I view our upcoming birth in a similar way. As I get closer to delivering naturally, I have more and more people either see me as either crazy or brave. No matter which side of the coin they are on, I will say that I feel like I'm preparing for a natural childbirth much differently than I would for an induction or C-section. Many people ask the question--why go through that pain? So many are doubtful and even skeptical. To me, it's like asking someone, "Why would you want to run a marathon?" A natural childbirth mom confirmed that both are definitely a full-fledged commitment before and during. She shared that you don't go into either a natural birth or a marathon as an experiment or with "maybes." You prepare fully to reach the finish line, and reroute only if there is a risk to health. In the end, not only do you reach a goal that is so incredibly fulfilling, but the journey and preparation is powerfully transformative. I appreciated her words and have taken them to heart as I prepare to deliver in June.
Any strong-willed commitment and highly challenging experience is something much beyond ourselves--we learn more about our mind-body connection than ever before. For me, I don't want to miss that opportunity. As Alice Walker mentions in my previous blog post, there is nothing more important than how we are born. Every woman has to find the right fit for her when it comes to her birthing choice, and my individual hope is to experience the raw and messy process of carrying my daughter and then bringing her into this world. I want to go through the transformation that the long process entails.
"I believe that the pain of normal labor does have meaning. The interesting thing about pain is that it is clean. When you are finished experiencing pain, it is over. You cannot re-experience it's sensation by remembering it. Labor pain is a special type of pain. It almost always happens without causing any damage to the body.
When avoidance of pain becomes the major emphasis of childbirth care, the paradoxical effect is that more women have to deal with pain after their babies are born. Frequent use of epidural anesthesia drives up rates of cesarian section and vacuum-extractor and forceps births. Epidurals can cause long-term backache in approximately one woman in every five. Sometimes the use of forceps and vacuum extractors results in injury to the baby or the mother. Intravenous lines are painful as long as they are in place and for a couple of days after they are removed. The more you move and disturb that plastic in your vein, the more it hurts. Women who have cesarean operations must have a catheter inserted in their urethra...Cesareans usually involve the placement of a surgical drain sewed in the part of the wound most likely to efficiently drain away blood and lymph from the abdominal cavity. Women find the removal of this drain on the third day painful, particularly when they haven't been given pain medicine and hour or so before the procedure. Finally the formation of intestinal gas...postsurgery soreness can interfere with a woman's ease in handling her newborn baby. Each of the procedures and conditions I have mentioned above involves pain after birth.
The woman who gives birth without interventions, on the other hand, is more apt to be through with the pain when her baby is born. Often she is euphoric, buoyed on the hormones released after the birth of her baby." -Ina May's Guide to Childbirth
No comments:
Post a Comment