L - Labour

I've tried to avoid writing about it - but you can't here. Somewhere it needs to be included.

There are two ways to approach labour (when it's your first)  - either engulf every piece of information available or go into denial.

I engulfed. It didn't make it easier, nothing can prepare you, I may as well have gone into denial.

I heard things that made me press my knees together in a shudder, I heard things that made me pause in disbelief. But I suppose no matter how much I engulfed there was always a barrier up. One that was lablled with "Me? Really?" Somehow, I could not put myself into the shoes of the pooing the bed, ripping in two, semi-naked, screaming and grunting woman in labour. There's something in your head that just shakes that image away. Maybe either approach ends in denial.

But I did it! After having a c-section (breech baby) first time round, I really felt I wasn't a fully -fledged member of the parenting club. I felt I had gotten in through the back door, so to speak. So part of me wanted to experience child birth. Yes, I was aware it would be the most pain I  have ever felt, and also the most undignified position I had ever been in. But I wanted to be able to say "I gave birth to you" not you "were untimely ripped" from my womb.

 And this isn't flouncy, hippyish, or looking back with rose tinted specs, this is how it was; it was horrendous, undignified and down right torturous, but My God at the end...I have never been so proud of myself!