Since before getting pregnant a second time, I've often thought about and researched having my subsequent babies naturally. Trey's birth was fine, and I feel like it went exactly as it needed to; but there were things about it that I just really didn't like and wanted to try to avoid the second time around. After having Trey, I KNEW that there was no such thing as a "planned" labor and delivery. Things are just going to go the way they go, and you just need to roll with it. Knowing this, when I found out I was pregnant again, I set out to learn as much about natural birth as possible. I spent my entire pregnancy researching everything and anything I could find. I figured that even though you can't really plan how your labor is going to go, education never hurt anybody. And so for the first few months of pregnancy I toyed with the idea of going natural. I had very mixed reactions from family and friends. Most scoffed at the mere mention of natural delivery and thought I was crazy, but some were very supportive and those that I had talked to whom had had a natural delivery swore by it. After discussing it with Dave, I committed myself to having a natural delivery but also had to "be real" and understood that if interventions needed to happen that it would be okay. After all, the only thing that really matters is a healthy baby.
As her due date approached, I went into frantic nesting mode. I am a planner through and through, and so my nights and weekends were spent doing all things "baby". Change is not something I deal with well so I was determined to be as ready as possible to have this baby. I knew what was coming (possibly ANOTHER screaming, colicky baby for months....ugh...), and wanted the smoothest transition possible. Haha. Just typing that out makes me feel like the biggest control freak ever, but alas; we are who we are.
January came (worst month EVER) and I was feeling pretty good. I continued to teach part time and things were coming together nicely at home. Her room was all set up, clothes cleaned and put away, decorations up, etc. I pretty much spent the entire month of January preparing my sub plans for maternity leave. Nothing stresses me out more than leaving someone in a lurch because I wasn't prepared. My teaching partner was leaving on a week long trip so I was planning on covering for her; giving myself a whole week to finish up preparations and meet with my long term sub. It was perfect timing!
I had been having braxton hicks contractions for weeks and they were so new to me. I NEVER felt anything like that with Trey and although they were super irregular, those things hurt! I had gone to my 34 week appointment and was told that I was dilated to a one, but that they weren't really doing anything, so not to worry. My doctor was leaving to go out of town at the end of the month and joked that there was only one week that I wasn't allowed to have the baby. I scoffed and said "Yeah, that's a whole month early. Pretty sure we won't have to worry about that. Haha."
No comments:
Post a Comment