Some Random Ranting

Sunny Again= Me Happy!!
It's sad how easily my mood is swayed by the weather. Or maybe it's just normal. But I take good weather as a good omen and bad weather as an ominous portent of doom, and maybe that's not so normal. I don't know what I would have done if it had rained on my wedding day or something. A good example would be the day we brought Addy home from the hospital: it was so warm and mellow and unusually balmy for October, and I knew then and there that her infancy would be smooth and peaceful. And it was; she was a remarkably content newborn. Coincidence? Probably. But I remember distinctly how reassured I was, as we walked through our front door for the first time as a family of three, that the sun was shining down on us and a gentle breeze was blowing in my hair.
So yeah, let's hope that this next one, due September 9th, arrives home on an equally cloudless and bright day! Or, I guess I could just refuse to leave the hospital until the weather is suitably mild. They'd probably think I had postpartum depression and was losing it, but hey, maybe I could score some mood elevators or something.
Anyways, what was I going to talk about today? I don't know if you've noticed, but my posts have been a little scatter-brained lately... Oh yeah, I was going to talk about childbirth. Yay!
Specifically, how in my first pregnancy, I was by this point already obsessing about how and where and in what position to give birth, with what calming music and aromatherapy in the birthing suite, and with what relaxation techniques ("visualize waves!") to help me avoid drugs. It just seems funny now. I mean, it's one day of your life, and it's so physically and emotionally draining that your memory of it blurs anyways. It's the baby part that matters, not the when and where and how. It's great if you can have some ideal, earth-mother kind of experience, but I also think we should be grateful that if we want help with pain, it's there!
All this talk on the "natural birthing" websites of which I was a fan in the past, about how women have been doing this for years and we just have to trust our bodies, is kind of true and kind of a load of crap. Yes, the vast majority of women are physically capable of giving birth. But some aren't. Women used to die, and their babies with them. And yes, we are capable of birthing without drugs. And some of us desire to experience that. But I'd also bet you good money that if someone had offered those women birthing in the rice fields a nice shot of Demerol, they'd have been all over it!
Now, I personally didn't get an epidural last time, but that's only because by the time I was begging for something, anything, I was dilated 9 1/2 centimeters and had missed my chance. I had a fairly short labor last time, and I'm kind of afraid that's going to happen again, that I'll tough it out until I change my mind, and by then, surprise! Too late for drugs- time to push this watermelon out!
And then there's the C-section thing. I was just hanging out today with a friend who had a really traumatic birth with her first child and has elected to have a C-section this time. Some women, probably members of Lamaze International, would frown and say that she is being fearful and not "trusting birth," blah blah blah, but after hearing her horror story (a hundred-plus stitches!) and I am totally with her on this one. She is a pretty petite person, and maybe her body is just not designed to birth babies very well. It happens. I have another friend who's going to have her fourth Cesarean in July because, as they discovered during her first birth, she has a cervix which refuses to dilate whatsoever. A hundred years ago, she would have died trying to give birth "naturally," and now, thanks to hospitals and modern medicine, she is going to be the mother of four.
I don't know that I have a real point here, except that it's nice to have one less thing to be obsessing over this time around. I am worrying about the logistics of traveling with two carseats, about the conflicting sleep schedules of a newborn and a toddler, about my current stretch marks which are already looking, er, stretchier, but one thing I am not too concerned about is the actual birth. If it's more than I want to handle, I'm getting an epidural, and that is that!