When I was expecting LM, Dr. F was in the throws of the worst part of his 3rd yr of med school and I was mid semester of grad school. I was more cavalier about giving birth than I usually am about anything. I figured that women have been giving birth for thousands of years and I can do it too. What I didn't count on was being left feeling like giving birth happened to me instead of being an active participant. This time I'm determined things will be different. I've started doing a lot of reading on natural birth, breathing exercises and exercises to ease labor and delivery. I came across this great DVD set
Generally I consider myself pretty well educated, but I learned so much from the first dvd and I'm becoming more and more convinced I want to go as naturally as possible with this delivery. My list of NO's was pretty long before I started researching (ie. no induction, no episiotomy etc), but now I'm becoming more and more convinced I want as few interventions as possible. Now, I'm not about to have a home water birth, but I'm seriously considering a birthing center attached to a hospital just in case.
Finally, tonight I watched The Business of Being Born.
I totally get that it has an agenda, but I'm feeling more and more strongly. Now I'm just not sure I can actually make it through labor and delivery without the drugs. I want to, but I'm scared. Have any of you given birth without drugs or had a particularly good experience with a particular book or dvd series?
3 comments:
Ooh! Yes! I have some good books for you. If you're around this weekend, E and I can bring them by :)
You can do it girl! After Henry's UBERmedical crash c-section, Maggie's birth was a dream. I did have to be induced with pitocin, but delivered without an epidural or anything. I'd give birth like... 3 times without drugs before I'd have one more c-section. I really enjoyed the The Best Birth by McMoyner. I read a LOT of crunchy, super natural birth books, but I though hers prepared me the best for wanting the LEAST interventions, but staying in a hospital setting. I'd love to talk more about it if you want to!
I read Our Little Apartments Birth Story about her son Gabe and was completely sold on the idea of the tub for labor. Shockingly there aren't many (maybe) places that will let you do this in DC it seems. I have lots of thoughts and questions about this that too much for an iPhone blog comment. Hopefully we'll get a chance to discuss at some point!
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