One thing I discovered very early on in my pregnancy is that EVERYONE has an opinion that they want to share. Whether it's what you should be eating, when you should start your maternity leave or where you should deliver your baby. When you get pregnant, you're bound to get an earful.
Over the past few months I have come to greatly appreciate and love the people who have respectfully kept their opinions to themselves if they are different than mine, and have said from the bottom of their hearts "I am here for you if you need anything, and will respect whatever you and Mitchell choose". Many people who I thought would take that approach haven't, and many who I didn't expect it from, did. People surprise you.
The one opinion that people share in abundance is what to expect from your birth. I have really had a hard time dealing with this one. I've had to condition myself to nod and smile, and quietly glaze over to stop myself from listening.
Natural birth is very important to both Mitchell and I. Drugs are not even an option in our minds. We have worked very hard to prepare ourselves for a calm and natural birth for our child. I can honestly say I am confident, completely devoid of fear, and truly excited to experience natural birth. The time spent in mental preparation to achieve this is incalculable. Hours and hours and hours. Which is why I cannot stand comments from people that don't work to affirm this place we've managed to get to. You cannot imagine how many women have told me horror stories of their birth, told me to "take the drugs", or told me I'm an idiot when they find out we are having a natural birth. It's been hard to quietly stand there listening, when what I want to do is interrupt them, inform them that the choices we have made have been thoroughly researched, calculated and made because they are what is safest for both me and our baby. I want to tell them that if they had spent half the time they spent researching where to go on their next vacation researching instead the benefits of natural birth, cesarean rates, and the system of birth in this country, that they probably would have made choices similar to ours. Instead, I ignore them and go to my happy place while I patiently wait for them to finish. I have had people tell me I will be screaming, that I will be begging for an epidural, that they can't wait to hear afterwards how they were right...essentially, that I will fail. It doesn't matter to me if they're joking around, or being serious. Both are negative, and certainly not supportive.
I imagine birth to be much like anything in life - 95% mental.
If I were telling people I wanted to run a marathon, I highly doubt they would tell me to pop pills the whole way when my muscles started to ache. Or better yet, to just take drugs before I even start! They also probably wouldn't tell me how horrible their last experience running a marathon was. They would be encouraging, give me helpful tips from their experience, and try to motivate me at the start line to accomplish my goal. They would try to empower me. They would not make me feel like I couldn't do it and it was something so completely out of reach and ridiculous that I shouldn't even bother trying. Why on earth is birth so different?
I will have a calm and comfortable natural birth. This I know. If this is something you doubt, or can't quite wrap your head around that is completely fine...but you'll need to keep it to yourself!
And so here I am. Days away from the birth of our child. I am excited to experience birth the way it was meant to be experienced. I am 100% confident that my body knows exactly what it is doing and that my only role during this experience is to shut off my mind, and completely surrender the birthing process over to my birthing body.
- Mama, out.
That is why you need to trust that things happen for a reason, believe in yourself enough to know you'll be able to handle any surprising circumstance that may arrive, and take a picture of the scary pregnancy test. Because - one day...you're going to want that picture.
