Very much looking forward to birth!

[Snowlet]

Right, let's fill this thread with positivity.

I feel empowered, educated, calm, at peace with what my body was born to do and ready to not feel like a truck anymore! (which is so sad because I'm only 29 weeks)

Whatever we'd like our birth plans/preferences to be, whatever choices we make, I'd love for every woman to feel that they are HERS, that she is powerful and that her wishes are important.

It does matter what you want, you should picture your 'perfect' birth over and over again and you can't receive what you don't ask for.

So then, is anyone else looking forward to labour and birth as the unique, life changing experience it will undoubtedly be?

Alibaba by they I mean medical professionals/midwives at your birth, you're right that wasn't exactly clear!

I have already mentioned a crash section, could it go that much more wrong? I feel informed.

By control over conception, I meant whether or not to take pill/use condom/etc!

I don't mind everyone telling me I'm wrong but over many days of being on MN I'd have loved to see a few more heartening remarks and positive stories (I asked for some in another thread and it was great) so I began this thread in the belief that I wasn't alone in wanting to focus on empowerment and a positive birth whatever the outcome. I have birth preferences but I aim to feel positive about whatever comes because I feel I understand every potential outcome. Is that woo? So be it then I guess!

A successful birth, as far as I'm concerned, is both mother and baby being alive, healthy and happy at the end. This, sadly, didn't happen to many women historically, or in many countries today. Nothing wrong with positive thinking, but at the end of the day you have to go with the flow - every birth is different, and you have limited control over most of the variables. Birth is a means to an end, nothing more.

Labour and birth are without doubt life-changing and unique.

But no birth plans or parent classes can prepare you for the event. They just can't - because no words can prepare you.

No mere words could have prepared me for labour or birth. For sure, I was expecting labour pains.

But nothing can prepare you for the sheer overwhelmingness of the experience. Nothing.

Planning is good, but keep an open mind to the possibility that you might not be the calm empowered woman come the actual event.

Pass that positivity to your womb and cervix

My bsby just didn't get the memo it was time to get out and had to be removed through the sun roof.

This one is coming the same way because I have no desire to experience child birth now. So I'm also very positive about my upcoming birth experience

I do actually think there are many, many things I have achieved in my life that I am rather prouder of than having pushed a baby through my fanny. Which I've done twice, including a home waterbirth which was all very lovely in its own way (after a totally shitty first birth) but wasn't actually up to me. It was the way the cards fell, that particular time.

Control is precisely what we don't have. These are irrational, animal processes. Sure, you can make some choices according to preference if you're lucky - but most of the time this is just, you know, Stuff. Save the pride for something you do, not that happens to you.

As someone who had a very traumatic first birth I say - good on you OP, it is vital to feel positive, excited and prepared before your first birth. I was the same, no things didn't go 'perfectly' but I don't look back and think I was stupid, I just remember that positive excitement that I felt and I'm pleased that was my experience rather than feeling really scared and nervous!

Good luck OP, if things go a bit wrong there will people there to help and they wil sort it all out, so stay positive and enjoy this exciting time

Oh, and you do not understand what it feels like to be suddenly surrounded by medical personnel and whizzed into theatre because your baby's heart rate has plummeted; to be facing a crash section while they slap monitors on you and top up your epidural so that you are finally numb after 15 hours of pain relief that only worked on one side, and you think "ah, this is the reality, they really are going to slice me open if this last-ditch ventouse doesn't work"; while a room full of people shouts PUSH and then finally plonks something slimy on your belly when you are too exhausted to do anything but gasp for water because your mouth is so dry from the oxygen. Please don't patronise other women who've actually gone through labour and birth.

OP, I was like you. Still am.

Birth of DC didn't go to plan but loved the experience and can't wait to do it again. Good for you! The 'just you wait' types would love for you to eat your words and have a horrific time, but you have my well wishes! :)

I do really wish you a peaceful birth, be kind and remember to be kind to yourself however it all goes.

I have the opposite of many I had a peaceful unmedicated birth , but I had planned the opposite.For my second child I wanted an epidural , I wanted everything going.As I was in labour so long with my first, my second was born in 20 minutes. It was nothing I did , I was all ready fro a long labour with lots of drugs,it falls as it falls.

P.s - however, no amount of positivity will stop it from fucking hurting like a bitch.

Good luck. I had a wonderful, calm birth planned. And that's what I expected.

DS was hauled out with forceps after I punctured a lung attempting to push him out.

The worst thing about having expectations of having a 'normal' easy birth was how much of a failure I felt afterwards.

WTF is wrong with people?

There's nothing wrong with being positive and the OP started out by saying "let's fill this thread with positivity" but lo! the doomsayers marched in.

Snowlet Mon 24-Mar-14 13:25:51
Haha oh man! Some people are a tad bit patronising eh?

Yep you do sound patronising.

I think its a fool that doesn't listen to those who have experience.

From everything I've seem it does seem to be the women who set themselves up for the perfect birth that have the furthest to fall and deal with if it doesn't go quite right tbh too. They don't quite understand why, feel utterly betrayed into believing something that proves to not turn out, end up feeling, wrongly, that they are failures or have missed out on something. Which isn't a positive start to their new life as a mother.

Whats actually wrong with the realistic approach and acknowledging that things can and do go wrong? In fact this happens to a sizeable percentage of women, because birth isn't predictable or controllable and kidding yourself it is, isn't necessarily going to help you in the end. Empowerment comes from accepting that things might not go to plan just as much as when they do.

I find your positivity good to a point, but when you start barking on about visualisation and use language that somehow implies that if you let negative thoughts creep in, that you are somehow to blame for a bad experience, I find in spine tinglingly and gobsmackingly naive and actually rather rude.

Especially when you come out with gems like the above, which really do not reflect well on you and make you sound incredibly insensitive to some women.

You need to learn how to word things much more sensitivity - even if you do get the birth you want - because actually you are phrasing things in a way that is liable to really hurt or distress some if you are not careful.

So yes I do see a couple of double sides to your mindset.

Apologies op, I was conflating you and tropical horse, who actually was much more objectionable than anything you said! I do genuinely wish you all the best. Certainly no point dreading labour! There are things in our control about labour, but in all reality very few, and the best mental attitude IMO is to go with an open set of expectations, and to remember there is no failure involved - baby coming out is the success.

Oh shame on you, why pour scorn on OP's positivity?! That's not necessary, not fair and smacks a little of sour grapes.
We all know first time mothers-to-be who are adamant they will breastfeed exclusively, that their pfb's will sleep through the night by the time they're 2 months old thanks to wonderful Gina Ford, that their toddlers will be potty trained by the time they're 18 months and able to recite wheels on the bus in French before they start reception. What is wrong with a little optimism and striving for a higher ideal? It's like packing swimsuits and sunscreen for a camping trip, knowing full well there's a greater than 60% chance you'll spend half the trip in a random indoor play centre listening to hail on the roof.
I'm sure the OP is well aware of all possible complications of labour - goodness knows there's enough people on here to share their experiences - but should that prevent someone trying for the birth they want?

FWIW Snowlet I had a manageable wonderful first water labour and birth in a birthing centre, and I would like to think a large part of that was down to being determined I would stay away from hospital and interventions and the temptation of an epidural. It wasn't an easy, blissful, karma-centric birth - but for the most part it was what I had hoped for.
Second time around, 5 weeks to go and feeling like a whale, I am more wary as I know with every passing day and gained pound of weight that it's going to hurt like fuck when it comes to pushing the little monkey out. But that doesn't stop me telling my midwife that I want to book back into the same birth centre with the same birth plan. Of course I know it might all go horribly wrong but la la la I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and ignoring all the horror stories and hoping I'm as lucky again

Bless. I bet you've bought a shed load of baby clothes, got them all washed and ironed too and everything is perfect sitting there waiting for the baby?

Enjoy your first time birth ignorance..because in this situation, ignorance really is bliss!!

On a separate note, people seriously do birth plans??! REALLY?!

Oh and by the way, I think all the doomsayers comments along the lines of "bless her naivety" are actually more patronising. Having 1, 2, 3, 4, or 10 children doesn't make any of us experts in birth or motherhood - because everyone and every child is different. How patronising to tell a first time mother to be "it doesn't matter what you hope for, because life isn't going to be like that".
The next time your teenager tells you they're going to be a doctor or a lawyer or an actress when they leave school I presume you'll all turn round and tell them "don't get your hopes up love, statistically you're likely to end up in a boring job earning minimum wage"?
No I didn't think so.

What minipie said.

Good luck, OP, keep an open mind.

The next time your teenager tells you they're going to be a doctor or a lawyer or an actress when they leave school I presume you'll all turn round and tell them "don't get your hopes up love, statistically you're likely to end up in a boring job earning minimum wage"?

Erm, well I think that comparison is a pretty daft one. As a teenager I wished I had been given more realistic career advice, because I think I would have made some pretty different life choices actually. I was totally clueless in need of someone that I could make sense of to help me make a wise decision.

And yeah I do think its pretty wrong to encourage someone to be a lawyer or a doctor in some cases if they simply are unlikely to achieve that because again, at some point they are going to come down with a bump. Yes encourage them if they show promise, but it has to be down to the kid concerned.

And not achieving your teenage dream, doesn't mean that you'll end up in a "boring job on minimum wage". I think thats the shittest thing you can say to a kid. Why do people automatically think that minimum wage = boring or shit. Many minimum wage jobs are incredibly worthwhile, rewarding and fulfilling.

I think pandering to societies ideals (eg being rich, powerful and famous) are not always a good thing and don't teach you whats most important in life and don't teach you to cope with life. Teaching someone to cope with the unexpected, unwanted and down right awful things in life is perhaps a better approach to life than just telling them they are wonderful and everything is going to be just peachy.

I wanted a small baby and a sneeze birth. I got just that.

Went into labour at 31 weeks, it lasted 4 hours and I got a tiny 3lb baby.

Careful OP.

The next time your teenager tells you they're going to be a doctor or a lawyer or an actress when they leave school I presume you'll all turn round and tell them "don't get your hopes up love, statistically you're likely to end up in a boring job earning minimum wage"?

No, but it's my job to tell a kid who had read too many self-help books, is fantastic at languages and art but dire at biology that just because they have 'self belief' (and -crucially to this analogy) a fantasy idea of what being a doctor is like it doesn't mean that it's the best choice for them. Otherwise it's a bit like telling them the tooth fairy exists till they're 16 because the truth hurts. But the truth hurts less than Us in wrongly-chosen A levels, all their uni applications being rejected, then realising self help mantras don't 'make things happen'.
Before we had this policy, we'd get kids thinking they'd 'failed' to get on the PE or Science courses because they were the ideal at our school: now we have kids feeling they've succeeded by choosing whatever they happen to be best at. Happy kids, post 18 uni/employment is up over 200% ... because of (gentle) realism.

That would be my analogy of this thread. The 'middle ground'.

Good for you OP, sounds like you are well aware that things may not go exactly the way you want them to but nothing wrong with some positivity. I think it's sad that so many are so scared of what is to come and some of the patronising responses above don't help those people. Why do people almost seem to want to see you fail? ?
I had planned a home water birth with my first, as an ex midwife I was fully aware of how things could go and accepted that but some people were still very patronising towards me and worried how I would feel if things didn't go to plan. Actually I was fully prepared for that eventuality and they didn't go to plan as I was quite ill in the end but the experience was still very positive. I didn't feel much pain, they actually didn't believe I was in labour (3 weeks early) but I was 6 cm dilated.
Second baby was a water birth, everything I wanted, not particularly painful and I genuinely enjoyed it.

I didn't mean to get bogged down in an analogy about career choices and university paths. Take another example: a friend tells you they've started a new diet and want to lose 3 stone in one month - do you "shake your head at their naivety" and call them patronising for trying? Or do provide encouragement and support? My point was merely if we can be positive and encouraging to other people about other aspects of life then why are we so quick to pour cold water on someone's positive birth plan?