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?

Bambamb, it is depressing - it would be so nice if we could have a little space (as this thread was intended to be) where we could say that our birth experience was great and that we loved breastfeeding. Not to be smug. Not claiming it makes us superior to anyone else. Not attributing it to some special skill we imagine ourselves to possess. Not sitting in judgement on anyone who had a different experience to us. But being allowed to acknowledge how miraculous and amazing these things were rather than feeling like it has to be some shameful secret that we must never admit to because it might make someone else feel bad.

If I have a shitty experience in my next birth, I hope I could find support on here. If I am lucky enough to enjoy it again, it would be nice to feel the same. Either way, positive stories were exactly what I wanted to hear whilst pregnant and I wish that narrative was more available to expectant mothers so that they know that whilst a bad experience is possible, it's not inevitable and good experiences exist too.

Good luck Ikea! I agree that I sometimes think I'm due a bad time to balance out how lucky I was the first time but as you say, there is no point worrying about it! Just acknowledging that it may happen and if it does, we will be able to cope - but hopefully we will be lucky again!

Ikea - I always describe my first birth as feeling like we were having a little party in the room. You're the first person I've ever come across who has felt the same so that made me smile! I think for me it was the double dose of morphine that I'd had

But I did feel a bit like that again with number 2. In between contractions I was standing up in the pool doing a little dance because it felt good.. ...go figure! Think I was trying to conjure up a party atmosphere in my mind to help me along. And only gas & air that time. I genuinely did enjoy the whole experience except the pushing part which seemed to go on forever but it was ok.

Agree Jelly, being pleased with your experiences shouldn't equate to being smug.
I actually feel extremely extremely lucky and blessed to be honest.

I remeber telling the midwife between contractions that she should sell gas and air to supermarkets as I would choose gas and air over wine no contest!

"You should picture your 'perfect' birth over and over again and you can't receive what you don't ask for."

Actually you absolutely can receive what you don't ask for.

In birth or in anything else.

Any woman who has given birth will know you feel rubbish, powerless and that know that their wishes don't matter?

Bollocks.

You can't generalise like that any more than the op can say all births are empowering and wonderful.

My wishes, needs and privacy were of the utmost importance in my births and when a situation arose in one where someone did not respect that they were asked to leave.

My second birth was like a party. I had NO drugs, and yet in between contractions it was the best social event EVER.

I had my DH, my funny doula and my Mum and Ingrid the German Midwife who was quite obviously startled at various aspects of my birth-plan.

It was a hoot.

And to top it off, Ingrid said it was one of the best births she'd done and will recommend my birth plan strange requests to future women.

How's that for an amazing experience.....

So anyway, - my wishes mattered to Ingrid.

Amrapaali 'I did feel powerful and I did feel that my wishes were important and they were totally respected by the midwife. An emergency is obviously different but emergencies are not the norm, they are not to be expected and fortunately most women won't experience them.'

You know what? Me too. And you know what else, I DID plan for the emergencies too, and had a detailed plan of most eventualities. This IS possible.

Harder

I'd love to contribute/support a homebirth group. Are you sure I'm in your area though? I've moved a bit.

FWIW bambamb I liked your cancer analogy - much better than my careers advice one! Yes it does put some onus on the patient to 'try' but is that worse than writing them off altogether from the outset?
And I liked your positive, realistic birth story too.

mother I disagree with your statement that positive 'fluffy' thoughts will make a difference to someone's health. The effectiveness of placebo drugs, and conditions like munchausens (fabricated or induced illness) tell us that the mind plays a hugely powerful and not yet fully understood role in a person's physical health.
I'm sure in your vast experience you will have contrary evidence but my personal experience is this:
My father was diagnosed with cancer when I was 19 years old. It was bowel cancer initially, followed by liver and pancreatic cancer, and finally came lung cancer. There were many operations, many hospitals, chemotherapy, radiotherapy etc. Five years worth. Finally the consultants said he'd run out of 'luck' and had no more than 4-5 months left. My dad told them no, he was going to make 7.5 months because that was when I was getting married and he was going to walk his daughter down the aisle. Which he did. And died 5 days after my wedding.
That was what the power of positivity did for him - everyone deserves a shot at trying to feel positive.

raaraa I love the sound of your birth plan! It would never have occurred to me be so specific when writing it!!

Am I one of the miserable doomsayers if I pick apart your opening post?

I feel empowered, educated, calm, at peace with what my body was born to do
I remember feeling the same before my DD, I'd read the books, mumsnet, felt informed and wasn't scared. My midwife says she remembers me being really chilled about it all.

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.
Except everything that happened wasn't my choice, I wasn't given a choice. Following an easy pregnancy and a labour that seemed to me to be going well (coping with pain ok, near clockwork contractions getting closer together) I had an EMCS because DD was undiagnosed breech. No skin to skin in theatre. Then we had to give her formula after a few hours because she couldn't latch (TT, low birthweight - whole other story). None of that was my choice, I wasn't given one.

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.
It doesn't work like that. To suggest that we can get either a perfect birth or get what we want simply because we want it or because we 'ask' for it is at best naive, and at worst offensive.

So then, is anyone else looking forward to labour and birth as the unique, life changing experience it will undoubtedly be?
Having a child is life changing, and it's certainly an experience, but in my opinion, a lot of PND and issues caused by this notion that birth is an 'experience'. It's a process our bodies need to go through to get a baby on the other side.

whst my body was born to do
This is why women often feel like a failure/ their bodies have failed them if it doesn't go to plan. Yes, childbirth is 'natural' but lots of bad things are also natural and Mother Nature also made it natural that not all women and children would survive it / pain is natural etc.

That's my tuppence worth. I don't wish anyone an ill experience, but please remember that positive thinking does not equal a good birth. And if things do go a bit tits up for you, I hope your positive attitude helps you get through it.

theborrower - you say that you had no choice, but perhaps OP could learn from your experience?

We don't know what sort of birth she is planning but if she felt strongly for example, about trying to avoid an EMCS she has time to do some research into different hospital's policies re breech births or twins. Or waterbirths - do they say they have a pool, but in practice never use it? Better to find out at 29 weeks that 40.

I certainly wished that for my first pregnancy that I had known that choices were available, but that no one saw fit to tell me, and I didn't know the questions to ask.

Am I being one of the miserable doomsayers if I pick apart your opening post?

Aargh! Yes! Yes you ARE, or at least you are totally missing the point of the post - along with all the other doomsayers.

The OP does NOT state that a positive attitude guarantees you a good birth - she acknowledges that despite her optimism she could end up with a crash section and all the visualisation in the world won't prevent this if an emergency happens. She KNOWS this. She doesn't need people to point it out or sneer at her hope.

Her point about not receiving what you don't ask for - my interpretation of this is simply that if you approach birth full of fear, panic and dread then you won't have a good experience - evidence supports the fact that fear slows labour and leads to complications. The flipside IS NOT that approaching labour with calm positivity will make it all go well, but it does open up that possibility.

What on earth is wrong with all the people who can't bear a pregnant woman feeling excited about birth? Why do they have to jump in with horror stories and belittle the experience to just an unpleasant process? Maybe it will turn out like that for the OP, but maybe it won't! And she should be allowed to hope for and expect the best. NO ONE thinks that will guarantee a great birth but it does no harm to be receptive to the concept that birth CAN be empowering, enjoyable and exciting. It isn't that way for everyone, of course not. And it's no one's fault that they don't have that experience. But some women do and why shouldn't a pregnant woman hope to be one of them?

Well, I think we'd all like to avoid an EMCS but my point is that in labour circumstances are taken out of your control, mostly because your body and your baby can't/don't follow what you'd like to happen. Childbirth is unpredictable.

Another poster wrote about the OP thinking about what choices she'd like if it came to an EMCS, and I think that's a good advice for anyone writing a birth plan e.g. Do you want your partner to announce the sex, or do you want the screen lowered? Again, circumstances may not allow (crash section, or under GA) but sometimes there are small allowances.

I do think that it's good to feel positive about things rather than scared - of course it is - but as many others have said, things don't go to plan and just because you think positive thoughts it doesn't mean it will all be 'fine'.

Theborrower, that was almost exactly my experience, how strange. I got to 5cm at home, calm and bouncing in my birthing ball. Arrived at hospital, and was examined by the midwife who discovered I had a foot in my cervix... DS was undiagnosed footling breech. He had one leg folded across the pelvic canal, and the other one poking down it, there was no way he could be born naturally, and I suspect 100 years ago he would have died. So, EMCS for me. Then he had a tongue tie - a whole different story, I managed to EBF to 4 months, and to blind myself to the fact that him dropping from the 50th to below the 0.4th centile meant that despite having the tt separated at 6 weeks, things just weren't working. Looking back, I feel sad at how thin he was, his bony little face and skinny thighs. People would have you believe formula is the work of the devil, but I couldn't believe how he went on to thrive - I only wish I'd switched sooner.

So OP, my body essentially "failed" and the two things it was supposedly born to do. And if I actually believed that, I'm sure it would have made the first few months of struggling with BF, worrying about failure to thrive and sleep deprivation even harder to cope with. But the reality is that none of it really matters. The baby will be born one way or another, you will feed it one way or another, you'll love it more than you can imagine, and it will absolutely change your world. But birth is a tiny, tiny part of it. If I were you, I would hope for a good birth experience, but recognise that a lot of it is out of your control - focus more on the baby you will be bringing home afterwards!

But she never stated it would be fine because of positive thinking. She is thinking positively as well as being informed of all the possibilities. She knows she can't control it but she wants to approach it with calm positivity anyway. What is wrong with that?

And it's precisely because birth is unpredictable that I think it's important to feel in control beforehand. You can't control what happens during labour but visualisation gives you a sense of control leading up to it which helps relaxation and confidence in late pregnancy. So even if you have a terrible labour, you benefited from the positive mindset at the end of pregnancy. What advantage is there to worrying and panicking and expecting the worst?

I researched all the possibilities before giving birth. I knew my pain relief options, I had an idea of what I would want to happen in the event of a section though I knew that in an emergency a lit would be out of my control. I still expected and anticipated a happy birth experience, which I was lucky enough to get. I think it's really important for pregnant women to know it can work out that way. I didn't have a painful or scary birth. I didn't expect to have one though I prepared myself for the possibility of one. The OP is allowed to expect and hope for the same. She doesn't think that guarantees her one but she wants to anticipate one. I think her excitement is a good thing which should be encouraged, not sneered at and dismissed.

It really would be nice if there was one thread on here of good birth stories that pregnant women could take hope from and feel encouraged and empowered. It would be great to acknowledge that these experiences are possible - there is no way to make them happen, but they can and do occur. I don't know why so many people want to dismiss this as naive and tell pregnant women birth is bound to be awful but never mind, they'll get a baby so should just forget about trying to enjoy or value anything about the actual experience of delivering it. This thread is a very depressing read!

The resignation exhibited on this thread is a bit depressing: 'birth goes wrong, suck it up', seems to be something of a theme. If previous generations had thought like that, we probably wouldn't have seen the end to compulsory shaves and enemas when we did, or had Dads in the labour wards, or today, the increasing use of doulas. It's because people aren't happy about their experiences that they decide they will try to do something. IMO it's better to be positive than resigned.

Positive visualization is very powerful. Where people go wrong is only visualising the best case - candlelit water birth attended by fairies or epidural on arrival depending on your preferences. To have a truly good birth experience you need to positively visualize pretty much every major scenario and walk yourself through it to remove as much of the fear of the unknown as possible, all the time visualising positive emotions and a positive outcome. Sounds airy fairy but it does trick the brain. Also you're removing the possibility of placing too much importance on your perfect birth and ignoring the other outcomes which will make you feel like you've failed if it doesn't go to plan because it's not how you imagined it.

That of course presumes that you've educated yourself on the possibilities of birth which is already one step towards a better birth experience.

I've met people who feel like their EMCS meant they failed and people whose EMCS was the polar opposite of their preference but still regard it as a very positive experience. I know people who struggled to bond because their baby was whisked off to NICU and people who had prepared for this eventuality even though it wasn't anticipated and didn't.

Knowledge is power, in birth as much as anything else.

What advantage is there to worrying and panicking and expecting the worst?

Expecting and being aware of are two different things IMO.
My friend had years of therapy (guilt, failure-feelings) because of her 'rude awakening' (vonteuse birth, epidural: mum and baby both OK thankfully) - she had almost brainwashed herself into 'my body is designed to do this, if I let an evil doctor step in I let down womankind'. Talking about it, it wasn't the pain but the feeling it had gone 'wrong' because she wasn't 'woman' enough.
I don't want to end up like her. I also recall the crushing feeling of my first loss after thinking because I didn't smoke, took folic acid, read the right books etc' I would bloom and thrive as it's 'what our bodies do' ... and the gradual realisation that without medication, in the past, I'd just end up 'barren'.

I now feel (preggo rage I know) that by the "YAY-sayers" I am being berated/told I am choosing stress in my pregnancy because I'm reading up on all eventualities although hoping for the best, using mindfulness etc' I fully accept some people's bodies will need medical help and that's life.
Of course I will have a birth plan, but I'll also be asking about pain relief, interventions etc' in case they are needed - so that if they are needed they're a plan b not a failure in my mind.
I actually find mindful awareness of the simplest and the most medical eventualities incredibly reassuring. Thinking 'OK, if it doesn't work ...and it's likely it will... it's not my fault and they'll give me an operation, it will be scary but it might well save our lives." calms me immensely.

Squizita I agree with your post completely - everyone who has recounted a positive birth experience has also said they made themselves fully aware of all eventualities. There is no inconsistency between saying birth can be great and let's prepare for that whilst also being aware of what can go wrong and, as you say, being mindful and aware of that and taking reassurance from the fact that we have access to life-saving interventions.

Your attitude of 'if it doesn't work...and it most likely will...it's not my fault...operation will be fine' etc is exactly the attitude I have. My problem is the people with the attitude of 'it will go wrong and you are stupid and naive to imagine it won't because birth is terrible and all women know this so how dare you be excited in your pregnancy about labour, you idiot'.

Good for you op. I had the same outlook and it was text book. Its not just the baby that is life changing. I had never felt more proud of myself or womanly than I did in the days following.

I will probably be made to feel guilty for saying it but for me it was a great experience. I know I was lucky and I don't mean to sound like a gloating earth mother type.

The majority of births are drama free and being positive with an open mind can only be a good thing. All the best.

McRoberts