Passive Birth !!

[mogwai]

Ok, so I know there's all this stuff about "active birth" and yoga, meditation, releasing your natural endorphins and riding on the crest of your waves of pain.

I really admire people who have the courage to embrace an "active birth"

Personally I feel that advances in medical technology have allowed me the luxury of wallowing in my own cowardice and I want all the pain relief I can lay my hands on.

Should I strat up a "passive birth" centre to advocate us cowards having as little as possible to do with the whole process, a random selection of cream cakes and DVDs in the delivery suite and a full bikini wax under epidural?

Who's up for that??

thing is starlover, I'm bloody livid with dh.

If I go into labour today, he will forever say it was his "laid back" atttude that put me out of my misery

i thought i had BH and it was labour!!! lol

do you want your epidural yet?

Blimey Mogs - don't be so hasty thinking they're BH's - that's what i thought (although mine have decided to pack their bags and waltz out of town).

Reckon you could be on your way chicka! Clearly milk the discontent as much as possible. Must get at the very least one bar of chocolate out of dh. Doesn't he know who you are, you're the mother of his unborn child for gwwoodness swake.

Feel really sorry for you about eperience this morning. It really annoys me that it's written in our notes we have SPD - and blumin' obvious when you shuffle in. I had my GP actually say to me - 'oh dear, what happened to you?' - like i'd been caught up in a skiing accident or summat. I just said - it's in my notes...and secretly cast my eyes up... Also, not one of the medical people i have seen have either offered to lower the bed, or helped me on or off the bed either - which i think is really odd. They can see i can't walk - how am i meant to hike onto a bed? And these people know how painful it is - it's shocking, i think they must become de-sensitized. At least my dh trys his best to assist, all be it he nearly renched my arm out of my socket the other day. He's allowed to be slighlty useless though as he's not in the medical profession.

And anyway - i'm having the word 'Epidural' tattooed onto my love garden - so that beats it written in biro on your notes...

you got a tattoo artist who'll do that? Hmmm I can't compete (strokes chin and considers how to get even)... Well the biro WAS filled with my own blood...

Yeah, I don't get the whole SPD thing. I also didn't seem to be able to get over to the doctor that no, I didn't need co-codamol, I could manage fine if I didn't lie flat on my back. Did he really think, after suffering this for months, I wouldn't have developed some sort of strategy to cope? SO I rolled off the bed sideways, which is what I always do, and he looked thoroughly impressed...FFS

BH definitely getting stronger as a result of today's shenanigans, but feel they are also in danger of packing their bags again, will do anything to convince them to stay (except getting lady garden tatooed).

Btw, someone on my antenatal thread, who is reading these rambles of ours, thinks we should start up a "passive feeding" and "passive parenting" thread.....I see lots of FUN ahead

I know the BEST way to get labout started.

Have you discovered "The Framley Examiner"? A friend of mine bought me a copy for my birthday one year and it now has an on-line edition.

You will wee when you read the "classified" sections. I mean, you will laugh so much, you will wee.

Check out the Dave Lee Travis quiz machine for sale, with "broken quack quack oops".

If I knew how to do a link, I would.

The web address is www.framleyexaminer.com.

As I said, it's the classifieds that will break your waters

This thread gets funnier and funnier!

Poor Mogwai and your lie-flat episode! Remind me of something that happened to me in last pregnancy at the osteopaths - just as I got on the couch I remembered I didn't have any pants on. (It was HOT!) I spent the session VERY tense.

hiya morningpaper

Glad we've got you on board

I hear lots of people read this thread but don't post. Passivity is alive and well !!

SO I'm getting strong BHs every 12 minutes or so but they don't seem to get any more intense. I guss I'm good for another night on the airbed

How glam, btw, going out without your pants!!

Ah yes, pantlessness means my pregnant thighs have maximum chance of chafing ...

puff, pant, phew... just got home after being in Yorkshire shortly after leaving home at around 8 this morning

Will catch up on thread tomorrow night (working my once every 2 months in Folkestone tomorrow!)so no giving birth either of you!!

BUT IN THE MEANTIME, NEITHER OF YOU RECEIVE EMAILS FROM MUMSNET SO I CAN'T CAT EITHER OF YOU MY EMAIL!!!! You need to change your settings, or both CAT me (all you have to do is click the "contact another talker" link just underneath "threads I started and threads I'm watching")

Ahhh, a quick 15 minutes before bedtime....

I appreciate you soaking up all my rain mogwai, but glad you don't get the lot - drove back in the most amazing thunderstorm I have ever seen in my life tonight.

So you were dragged up huh.... marrying above ones station I see.. who do you think you are, Elizah Dolittle???

Spikemomma, I don't like London much either - dislike been increased by the number of visits to the Royal Brompton. Yeurrk. But, I have to pull you up babe... it is possible to give birth passively whilst chanting a mantra, so long as that mantra is "thank you for my epidural, thank you for my epidural, thankyou......."

But I have a bone to pick with you though spikemomma... you made me spit my wine out when I pictured a 9 month pregnant woman skiing. Such a waste!

Morning, morning paper! I have a similar experience, but it was when I first went to my chiro wearing a thong and discovering one had to wear a hospital style gown with an open back. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I've redirected my 27p equal wager from spikey having sex to induce labour to mogwai popping first. Passive popping. Like shelling peas......

By the way spikey, surely at a mere 41 weeks pregnant you can manage to stay out of bed til this time of night to be involved in da chat... (I recall when being pregnant, I bought all the 24 series 1 to 3, and later on for some reason, the ENTIRE Robin of Sherwood series on DVDs to watch, as whilst I had to go to bed at 9 at the very latest, I couldn't sleep until at least, ooh, 10.30 and needed something to do. You should have invested in the laptop hon!!

no wusses round here... I can stay up until...well, until any programme featuring bono has finished

He and I are going to run away together, you know, when I've got my figure back....

Yes, married WELL above my station. By rights, should have passively popped out five children named Tandoori, Chantelle, Tyler, brittney and Goebbels by now instead of waiting into my thirties for my first. Am the shame of my family, not least cos I am known to drink filter coffee . I asked my mother what pain relief she had in labour, she didn't know what was available so had whatever she was offered, if anything. That's a different world to me, filter coffee or not!!

No closer to popping but may be considering having "relations" in passive manner to induce me. Mind you I'm so passive, I'm "not even bovvered". DO I look bovvered? Ask me if I'm bovvered...

MorningPaper - You made me laugh. Clear to me however that you could be covering the fact you actually had the hots for your oestopath. Oh yeah - see what you're like...dirty girl.

Serah - Never mind skiing. After my chums and i were leaving our last antenatal last week i jokingly said i wouldn't know what to do with myself - i might go rollerblading. A shocked interjection came from the health visitor who was walking behind me, saucer eyed she said aghast 'you're not are you?'. I didn't need to reply apart from shift my eyes down to my crutches, hesitating slightly on my bump and then back up to meet her frozen face. Surprisingly, health visitor admitted she'd always been a bit gullable... She was walking behind me because it had taken me two days to get from the antenatal room to the corridor. Sharp as a marble...

Re. online evening banter - one is usually downstairs howsting a dwinner or cwocktail pwarty on mwost ewvenings, hob nobbing with my minnions... Failing that, dh broke lap top two weeks ago. sigh

Yes, dh 'fell over' whilst holding it and smashed it into kitchen floor. Genious. He lay face down, starshaped for approx. 2 mins in the hope that i'd heard him and would 'rush' (using term very loosly) to his aid. I didn't. He ended up hobbling upstairs and in the i-need-sympathy-pathetic-man-voice wimpered he'd hurt his toe really badly - it might be broken [cast eyes up - likely...]. My response was 'aww luvey. Get over it i'm hitting child birth in a week. Love you, awww'. Anyway, currently working on getting a new one - laptop - not dh. He did leave a scuff mark on my kitchen floor, which oddly, made me laugh. What a b*tch! Left it there for 2 days.

Mogs - Nice names. I was in, what we call a 'good value' shop up north, when something out of wife swap charged into the next aisle to me, with her motley crew of kids. She was shouting and barking at them every 30 secs (to stop shop lifting probably - or perhaps TO shop lift.) When she got really mad she bellowed out their names (they were stood right next to her, clearly all deaf) Wait for it: 'Wayne', 'Dwane' and 'Shane'. I managed to shoot the 'noooo wayyy' look at dh, before my stance - which had been a tip toe sneeky look over aisle shelf at curious gypo family - crumbled into, muffled mirth stance with 3 inch reduction in posture, racking shoulders, pain in chest from intake of breath and complete lack of composure. Nearly wet myself outside the shop - tears and everything - till we saw them heading out, kacked our selves and legged it.

And 'are you bovvered?' yep - you're kacking it just like me. Daring to go for 'relations' ey? Why, with your SPD, you'll be practically leaping off the bedroom walls. It wouldn't have worked if i'd gone down that route anyway. Sure i've 'sealed up' - i'm practically a virgin these days. Which may be tricky for child birth...

If you squeeze your bump out before mine - why, there will be strife...

wayne, shane, duane?

Well if this middle-aged baby turns out male, perhaps I could use all three?

Swear to God I'm not even bovvered. Even when I woke up at 5.30 am with humdinger of a contraction, I just rolled over (ok, did a seven point turn on airbed involving hooking heel over side of mattress to propel elephant-like proportions) and said "whatever!" before sleeping for over four hours more.

It did strike me I could have been in serious labour and it might be as well to wake dh, but I figured, well, I'll leave it up to someone else to worry about that.

Serah, I've sent you my e-mail address

Spikemomma, you have been far too passive - I tried to send my e-mail address but you don't accept messages (um...neither do I, must change this ).

Good luck with your induction. Will be thinking of you - and please do come back and share - we may end up giving birth on the same day, how lovely.

Ok hook up that epidural, gimme the drugs

Mogs i think you need to say you accept emails - i've changed mine now. i'll then send a message to serah and you.

Know what you mean about not being bov'ed - i've got to the point where my body has given up. He needs to come out now. Induction at 8.30pm tomorrow and i feel ok about it at the moment. Was meant to call the hospital yesterday, but thought, not much point, might as well get wheeled in tomorrow and use today as a resting day. They can then do what they want then. She did say she thought baby would have apppeared by now. See, Mother and Baby both passive - waiting for someone else to get on with it.

Will be online tomorrow - and then after that a short break (to reapply ones nail varnish, rouge and hair tongues will be in order), before details will be posted. GOOD LUCK WITH YOURS if don't speak beforehand x

Really excited for you! Am especially exctited that you have opportunity to fix your nails etc. I've been straightening my hair every day for two weeks and look where it got me. Me professional pedicure now looks more like pigs trotters.

I'll change my e-mail thingy now and hope you have a decent nights sleep.

SpikeMomma.. I need to "deal" with you first.... GOOD LUCK! And what did I tell you in my Hippy-Dippy speech?? You are ready - your body is saying "get this thang outta me!!" and it all makes the process easier to be far more passive about. Just remember, "there's no place like epidural, theres no place like epidural, theres no place...." and remember, when they pop the tablet "up yer flute" tomorrow at 8.30, there's no place like the maternity ward bath tub to wallow for a while.
Ah, and SHOULD you have CATted us, I could have sent you my glamorous "after birth" shot. No, not afterbirth.... post birth I meant to say. Even I don't ever want to see my afterbirth. I may mention at this point, that I had a slightly "dewy haze", with a perfect "rose" colour to my cheeks and a little buggly snuggling up to his adoring mother. It was just the mascara smeared all over my face that spoiled it really. That and the toast crumbs.

LOVE the names mogwai. If its a boy, will you name him after me? Clint? I recall waddling round one of my local tourist spots (featured on BBC1's "Restoration") with a friend and my dog, to hear a loving mother on the other side of the topiary calling for her child.... "AMAZON! AMAZON!...... get the fck over 'ere ya lickle sht 'fore I cave yer 'ead in". I thought, "How lovely, she has named her child after her favourite online literary source".

And for both of you... I went to an antenatal class in a different village as the building where my local one (for local people) was was being rebuilt. I met a girl who lives just up the road from me and we were due on the same day. I remember wondering how she was doing, and thinking "oh, she'll be at home now" as I had the second tablet inserted. Imagine my suprise as I was wheeled onto the maternity ward at 2 in the morning into the bay next to her! I've got 27p riding on you mogwai. Don't let me down.

how how how have i missed this thread?
its not my place to be here..havent been preg for yonks..have only skim read the odd bit ,but enough to get a feel for it.

your soooo naughty!

me and dp lol recently remembering the passive eve we spent, me high on drugs with someone on hand to wipe my ar*e!

hope you all have your sense of humour after the event xx good luck all

don't worry beans.... I haven't been pregnant since December...i'm just enjoying the company : )

WHAT am I still doing up...??? EVERY night I say "oh, early night for me tonight! I'm shattered!" but I still find myself loitering around and twitching in the shadows late into the evening.

However, I eventually come home and check my emails before going to bed....

I think you're gonna lose that 27p, Serah.

After a glamorous night on my airbed (with very straight hair and legs shaved courtesy of orange bucket from the garage) I appear to be eating Dairy Milk (and if you check the time of this post, you will realise the extent of my shame) and waiting excitedly for Jerry Springer.

I think the nailpolish has got to come off now. Despite my efforts, having gone for that lovely pedicure, the polish is busy creeping up my nails, leaving an alarming growth of new nail in its wake. Such a pity, as it's Dior Rouge Noir and has attracted lots of lovely compliments since it's been "sandal weather".

And so another day at Her Majesty's pleasure (what? You think I'm going OUT with bare toenails?)

Buggery Bollocks

sorry

sorry Beans on Toast, a big "hello" to you. Have you read our manifesto?

Welcome to the Passive Birth Centre. I'm the founder member (and secretary in the north). Spikey and Serah are regional representatives (v. important - have badges and everything). There are a few confirmed members, some definite lurkers, and a couple of people who occasionally come in, look at the noticeboard, post something and run away . The latter leave their car engines running, cos they're not QUITE sure whether we are sane.

The Passive Birth Centre was founded in response to a certain atmosphere of bravardo (dare we say it, competition, in the style of "playground mother") to give birth over a beanbag in front of one's own patio doors, with most of the neighbours shouting encouragement from the patio. It is in no way a response to anything to do with "Active Birth", no, not at all. Any resemblance to other centres alive or dead is purely coincidental (coughs).

You could consider this thread the antithesis to tie-dyed kaftans, lady garden "au naturelle" (or any other variation on neat and tidy bushes) and freezing your own placenta for later use in tasty dishes and/or face masks.

At Passive Birth, we believe in the choice of the individual, freedom of speech, cream horns and random swearing. It's ok to be a coward, because cowardice is prized above all else. It's ok to admit you are shit-scared and "not very chuffed" about the prospect of impending childbirth, nobody will judge you or allude to the fact that your "natural endorphins will block out the pain" cos we think that might be a load of bollocks.

Although you may have already given birth, we hope this thread will provide you with something to aspire to in any future pregnancies. On a personal note, I do hope you'll look out for the book I'm going to write on pregnancy, it's called "Not without my straighteners" and I'll be touting it around the publishers just as soon as the epidural wears off and I have chance to wie the chocolate from my fizzog (to quote my colleague Serah).

Come in, have a cream horn

Hello Beans on toast! I like it when someone new pops up. Do you think i'll get beans with my after delivery toast if i tell the midwife i really really tried my best?

Serah - not sure what's making me more nervous, you 'dealing' with me or baby mission. Got your wise words stored and will chant from approx. 9pm tonight. Send me lots of fairy dust...

Mogwai - good luck, aim for passive sneeze and catch method if possible. That's what i'm going for.

Felt ok about the big 'I' until realised both dh and me have had the squits. dh says he only gets them when he comes home and sees me - nice. true love or what...? - so clearly both not nervous at all. Hoping we don't synchronise, if we do, i've told him the toilet is mine and he's in the bath....

And so my lovelies - adieu - one shall fill you in on all of the details and will post a birth thingy on't birth thingy stream. I still can not get to grips with the fact that i'm off to have an actual proper baby...

p.s Confession - bit of an earth mother when no pain involved. Got a bean bag and planning on using cloth nappies...does that shock and appall? - will i get lynched?!! One will check the passive birth thread on one's return. xxx

pps. Did try the CAT thing twice yesterday, but it failed. Think i'll need to do it when my brain returns next week. Looking forward to seeing said photo!

hee hee heee! You don't honestly think your brain's coming back next week do you??

I'll be chanting later tonight with you....

Good luck! x