Au Naturel

I was at christmas party, deep in a wholly appropriate conversation about water births when the subject turned to my labor and the business of having my babies. I was told by a friend that I never talk about the fact that I endured natural labor with both my kids. My internal response was, “Why would I?” It is clearly not the hard part of the process, seeing as once you have children they are here FOREVER (you hope).  Well, sometimes you don’t, but that is what grandparents are for, a break.  To me, labor, although excruciatingly painful, was the easy part. What you don’t often consider is the enormous challenge that comes in the form of parenting, educating, training, clothing, feeding, etc.

So when I sat down in the car to drive home from our getaway, I thought about my labor experience. With addy I didn’t really have a specific plan other than:  1. I wanted a doctor, in a hospital, and nothing to do with any form of water delivery.  2. I didn’t want drugs.  3. I wanted the baby out asap. With Owen littlle changed except my adamant request that I never ever, ever receive an episiotomy ever again, and if I see that doctor that did that horrible thing to me, well I ask that she be punched just hard enough to know that I was not happy, not one bit.

So, my reason for wanting a natural labor: I needed to feel what it was like, to know that I felt something deep and real for my kids.  It was so worth it.  Maybe not right that moment when you feel like you may just die from lack of proper decision making. For me it was later, months or years, I couldn’t say, but at some point it just became an experience that makes me happy and proud. Joining the millions of women that went before me who were birthing their babies in fields, alone, squatting, or even dying; my experience was tempered by built in safeguards, doctors and nurses ready for a problem. It made my safe, yet painful experience not so difficult to endure.  But it also made me feel safe in a different way, as if I found a way to connect to my predecessors, catching hold of a real and beautiful commonality.  Completing a ritual that is both ancient and modern. I am a woman who is now a mother.  If in any way you were considering the natural route, be encouraged and fairly warned, as “it burns, burns, burns — the ring of fire.”  I’m pretty sure that this is what Mr. Johnny Cash was really talking about.

Tagged as: Childbirth, Natural