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?

Can sweeps trigger labour early? I thought a sweep was only given if the Bishop's score indicated that labour was probably close anyway. I was given unsuccessful sweeps and in two pregnancies induced when 2w overdue.

Well if the sweeps do nothing then what is the point of subjecting yourself to an infection risk?

But if they DO trigger labour, then even just a few hours can make a difference.

Amrapaali - that doesn't sound good. It sounds as though they were paying more attention to their protocols than what was best for you.

In my case, I was accelerated, and I don't think I will ever be convinced that it wasn't unconnected to the fact that the labour wards were heaving, it was a week before a bank holiday, and they had had to hold the inductions up. I suspected they ran a few drips up to speed up those of us who had come in overnight and messed up their schedule ('failure to progress'). I don't know, of course, but when the Place of Birth Study reported that low risk women going into CLUs had more interventions/CS than matched groups in MLUs/home birth, it was something of a light bulb moment - yes, that makes sense of my experience. Which incidentally, I enjoyed, but would a more patient approach have avoided forceps?

Whichever poster talked about the placebo effects. I am sure there is a lot we don't understand about mind over matter. I was wretchedly sick with hyperemesis - its onset only started with my booking visit to the CLU. I hadn't wanted to go there, and I wondered whether there was a connection.

Yes, jelly this thread was supposed to be filled with positive thoughts. And I think mostly it has been positive.

I don't agree "a lot of people took a great deal of pleasure in pouring scorn on her optimism". Sure ,at the beginning some posters were incredulous. And I'm not proud to say I laughed as well.

But mainly, people have advised caution and a bit of balance. I mean, It does matter what you want, you should picture your 'perfect' birth over and over again?? No one's perfect birth will be major abdominal surgery. So by extension, a perfect birth means a fairly natural one with no medical intervention. And if you don't have this birth, the whole process is not perfect??

I am all for being enthusiastic, but this is the kind of attitude that spoils childbirth for a lot of women.

And "ask and ye shall receive?" Well, I did ask for a C Section and I got one with all the bells and whistles on. So hey ho....

I really wish the OP would come back, instead of having traipsed off after being all Pollyanna on this thread.

No one's perfect birth will be major abdominal surgery.

Can't agree - that is what some women want. The idea of vaginal birth terrifies them.

I can see where op is coming from. I was the same. I researched and knew what birth I wanted and I did certain things to make it much more likely things went to plan. There IS things you can do to increase the likelihood of having a natural birth. I refused induction, chose a birth centre instead of a hospital to birth in, knew and trusted my midwife, wouldn't have had an epidural ( although that wasn't an option anyway at the birth centre). And I think if you have a positive attitude about childbirth and aren't scared then this really helps. There is research about this.

Anyway op, I had 2 lovely water births. I loved the whole experience of labour, it was magical and although painful at times, completely manageable. As long as you have good support and are confident and know what you want you have every chance of having the birth you want:)

True, LaVolcan. And it's also true that these women have to fight and jump through hoops to get a C Section. Their fears are not recognised. But that is a whole other thread.

I think, you know, that birth/gestation are not what my body is 'for'. We end up defining ourselves far too much in terms of our reproductive capacities and achievements.

My body can run 5k, swim 60 lengths, write a damn good feature, cook a terrific meal, knit a jumper, sing a demanding Handel aria, dance pretty well too...and it could do that whether or not it had also produced two babies. (Similarly, I love my children and they have on balance enhanced my life but they would do so whether they were my birth children, adopted, whether I was a lesbian co-parent, and so on. And they are a big part of my life but they are not the sum total of my life, either.)

RaRa I thought sweeps only had a chance of starting labour if conditions indicated that labour wasn't far away anyway. I was refused a sweep just after 40w as the Bishops score was too low. I was given one on my request a week later when the score indicated favourable conditions (m/w was a bit meh about it). Still nothing happened and I was induced a week later.

So, for me it was an attempt to avoid induction. Worth a try but didn't expect too much.

Hear, hear, motherinferior!!

But I think the people who say "my body was designed for this" don't necessarily mean they are alive to just reproduce. I always take it to mean, "My body know what to do to give birth to a baby, just as it knows what to do to breathe or heal wounds" Instinct will take over.

But honestly, I don't think our bodies are THAT well designed. I really rue the day we became bipeds. We should have stayed on all fours, that would have made childbirth so-oo much easier.

Is it not so much that we are bipeds, but that we sit around on chairs rather than squatting, and so distort our pelvises that way?

But why laugh, Amripaali?

Pregnant women are overwhelmingly faced with the narrative that birth is a terrible and agonising ordeal that is to be feared and, at best, endured. If they dare to express any hope or positivity about labour they are laughed at and told a range of horror stories. They are dismissed as naive and deluded and told over and over the bad stories which are accepted as the truth whilst the good ones are snorted at and discredited.

So these women then approach their impending labour with fear and dread and a total lack of confidence in their own bodies. This is likely to inhibit labour and to lead to unquestioning acceptance of interventions in pregnancy and childbirth. If women are brainwashed into thinking labour is fearsome and that the very best they can hope for is to get through it with a baby at the other side then what incentive is there to improve the experience of labouring women? I hear awful things about hospital maternity wards. I don't think it is in women's best interests to have such low expectations of birth.

'RaRa I thought sweeps only had a chance of starting labour if conditions indicated that labour wasn't far away anyway.'

I think that is supposed to be what happens jules but increasingly being overdue is interpreted as 'labour is imminent' when if often really isn't. It is also offered before the drip and eagerly accepted regardless of Bishops Score.

But a lot can change in just a couple of hours. Neither of my last two were assessed as being engaged just 2 hours before I went into labour.

'No one's perfect birth will be major abdominal surgery.'

At one point this was exactly my perfect birth and I fought very hard to have it agreed.

What RaRa said; an elective form of major abdominal surgery was very much my absolute perfect idea. And great it was too.

But I think the people who say "my body was designed for this" don't necessarily mean they are alive to just reproduce. I always take it to mean, "My body know what to do to give birth to a baby, just as it knows what to do to breathe or heal wounds" Instinct will take over.

But where does that leave the pregnant woman who knows she'd be barren or dead if she'd tried to bear children 100 years ago? Can we not voice our caution or the fact we might well want intervention because of our bodies for fear of upsetting the sisterhood?

Honestly; it sometimes feels that way.

For example; I asked a question upthread. Completely ignored. I feel it was a very valid question - essentially, when making demands and requests how aware are first-time-mums/do they confuse/conflate:
-Things they can and should control? Quality of care, dignity, dad in the room etc'
and
-Things that can often be up to luck (blood loss, baby gets stuck for example) and that if these happen, they can/should expect intervention but that it should be done safely and with dignity.
...in a way perhaps 2nd time mums wouldn't?

As LaVolcan mentions some women are thrilled with their C sections because (presumably) they've been treated with dignity - but I read about a MW swearing (!!) at a patient during a medically 'normal' birth thus spoiling it for her.

...I mean know in advance, know because of family history and an underlying illness. Not just birth fear.
I am in a minority I hasten to add!! But I feel enormous pressure to pretend I can float in and have a HB and that admitting I need the 'evil doctors' is inherently bad.

TBH it's bullshit saying our bodies were designed to do this. Yes, in the main, they were.

However. I specifically asked my midwife and my doctor this, after the horrific first birth of my DD....Would i have died in days gone by?

And the answer. Yes.

So, I would have died if I'd have given birth in a third world country out in the middle of nowhere with no medical assistance.

Childbirth is dangerous. Most women do come through it unscathed, but I think it's worth pointing out that it's crap to say it's all in the mind blah blah blah, you can control the pain blah blah blah.

DD was stuck. Wedged solid. She was back to back. I was exhausted after being in labour for 3 days. She was finally yanked out by forceps, causing quite a bit of damage in the process (to her, and me) and an incredible amount of blood loss.

Frankly, it pisses me off to read that some people think I've obviously brought on my 'bad birth' by not being positive enough and trusting in my body It's the luck of the drawer I think, what type of birth you get.

*draw

Nobody at all on this thread has said that bad births are the result of not thinking positively. Not one person.

Nobody has said that interventions are bad or that doctors are evil. Not one person.

Nobody has denied that medical emergencies happen during birth. Not one person.

Nobody has said positive thinking guarantees a good birth. Not one person.

A lot of people have had a good laugh at a pregnant woman hoping for a good labour. Some other people have shared their positive birth stories, which is what the OP was after in the first place.

It seems that the 'sisterhood' is a lot more upset by women who have good births than women who don't.

Raaraa, in response to your question, DS was born at 38 weeks so no induction, no sweep, labour started naturally at home with my waters suddenly breaking and contractions beginning shortly afterwards. I'd been seen by the hospital MW the day before for a blood pressure check as it had started to creep up, and was told that his head was engaged, as I'd been told by my own MW. I've no idea how the mistake was made, I don't think there was a big change in position after about 34 weeks, and I'm certain he didn't turn in the last 24hours. What I'd been affectionately patting, thinking it was his bum, must have been his head! Just one of those things I think.

No vaginal examinations either before the one when I arrived at the maternity ward.

Personally, I have an idea of my perfect birth (this is my first baby and I'm planning a home waterbirth). I know it may not go how I want. I know that there's quite a strong chance that I will have to transfer to hospital for any number of reasons, ranging from me deciding I can't take the pain and want an epidural to serious complications requiring an EMCS. I know there's an awful lot in childbirth that I just will not be able to control. It's for precisely that reason that it's important to me to be able to control the very few things I can.

This is what is stopping me from feeling utterly terrified. In fact I was terrified until I made the decision to go for a homebirth. I now feel much more positive and I am actually looking forward to it. My plan is to give birth at home, in the house I love, surrounded by things I love with water and gas and air as my pain relief, with the caveat that if that's not possible I will just go with the flow and do whatever is necessary to get my baby into the world safely. If that means I need to go to hospital for intervention, then so be it. My midwife (a homebirth specialist) told me that's a positive attitude to have. But what does she know. Clearly I am deluded.

I swear if I listened to half the people on here I'd just request an ELCS and be done with it, because lets face it my birth experience is going to be horrendous anyway.

Things that can often be up to luck (blood loss, baby gets stuck for example)

This luck may not be up to the woman, but to do with:

the quality of the attendants, thinking back to eurochick's post about independent midwives having low intervention rates.

hospital protocols - blood loss, for example, I think I have read that that giving the injection for the third stage can lead to greater loss. Now, no one wants a woman to die with a retained placenta/haemorrhage, as could have happened in the old days, but is the routine use now of an injection for the third stage as much to do with labour ward policies of wanting to speed the process up and get the woman off the ward, as to her own welfare?

baby getting stuck - is it always just one of those things, or does it happen as a result of someone being put on a drip and not able to move freely, so she isn't able to work with her baby to get it into the optimal position?

early cord clamping, whose benefit is that for? That seems to be one of those practices which just grew up without very much evaluation as to why it was done.

To me, these are questions which probably don't have yes/no answers but are worth asking.

I conclude then Spaniel, that you were simply carrying a very cheeky monkey who was trying to dance himself out!