I pre-warn you before you read on.. normally I wouldn’t be this open about my body but I learnt very quickly today that there is nothing to be prude about when you are dealing with pregnancy.  So before I close up and turn back into my introverted prune self I’m going to embrace today .. there are lots of referrals to my personal body parts in this post so you are warned!

SO today was a big day in pregnancy education for me.  I have not read more than the first page of each week in Kaz Cook’s “Up the Duff.”  Every Saturday signifies a new week of pregnancy for Russ and I and we lay in bed on Sat or Sunday morning and read the first page of each weekly chapter.  Russ loves the update on how many cm’s she now is and I like reading just enough to know I’m on track – and to be honest it reminds me what week I am in, the time seems to get away from me!  Apart from that I haven’t read a thing – flicked through a few pages in the Practical Parenting magazines my sister sends me every few months sure but that’s about it.

I opened one book that Russ’s sister gave me, the page had some old school detailed images of stretching exercises to do of the vaginal area in the weeks leading up to full term to get the cervix and vaginal walls ready for pregnancy and the stretching – ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?  I thought as I showed Russ to double check what I was reading – he was not impressed ha!  To which I folded close the book and thought to myself the only reasons my hands will be going down there anywhere pre-term will NOT be for pregnancy stretching exercises I can tell you that.  Besides I learnt today that semen is good for softening of all the lady bits down there leading up to pregnancy; the ultimatum then is painful self stretching, or serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin producing sex .. sex please!  Anyway back to the book.  With that I closed the book and am now claiming ignorance to the birthing process, what’s the point of learning about what will inevitably be a pretty painful experience?  I self justify my lack of research all the time with the fact that I am far too busy with uni and work to read books… and it is kinda true.

Back to the classes.  I had the option of 1 night per week for 4 weeks in a row but between my Mum’s birthday, work, uni, flying to Melb, flying to Bali, Christmas and New Year – getting 4 consecutive weeks was difficult so I bit the bullet and allocated the entire today to get it over an done with.  Somehow Russ managed to skip town for work in Melb and my Mum became my support partner for the day – Mum you’re the best!  Russ you really do owe Mum big time, she was the only mother in the room, all other partners were there.  And the Males I might add were impressively well educated on everything gross to do birth.  They weren’t afraid to speak up, grab pads out of the ‘lucky dip’ nappy bag, yell out responses to questions like “what is a show” (sticky mucous vaginal discharge which means the birth is coming on!)  Yep I was a bit surprised too as I couldn’t have imagined Russ knowing the answer let a lone yelling it out.  His face was priceless when we had a midwife appointment and the male midwife explained ‘skin to skin contact’.  Where ” the baby comes out of the vagina and straight onto the breast” - described complete with actions!  It was almost like Russ was taken back to the sex ed talk in school ha ha.  If he was in the class today it would have been hilarious – vagina, va-jay jay, breasts, mucous, discharge, poop, all the most descriptive words were used all day supported by plenty of actions.

Another question I would have loved Russ to answer – “How many wet nappies do you think a newborn goes through every day?”  ha ha ha ha Mum and I had a giggle to ourselves thinking back to an earlier remark Russ made on this same subject – but this is saved for another post so you’ll have to wait in suspense for the story behind the joke.

Although the day was long and in some places boring I was quite pleased at the fact it wasn’t the 80′s birthing class I thought it would be with practise positions, massage and breathing techniques.  We didn’t even have to practice doing nappies or wrapping.  A lot of the content was pretty educational without being too full on – NO birthing videos THANK GOODNESS!

So just when I thought I had it all sussed:

“My deep breathing from yoga and Pilates will get me through the contractions, the phases of birth seemed pretty straight forward, potentially painful but being broken into stages made it somewhat easier to digest, sure this will be bloody painful but I can do it I reckon.”

My attitude is that I will make decisions on the pain killers at the time and I entrust all of my safety and birthing advice in the midwives, if natural works – perfect, if I need a vacuum or ceaser that is totally ok too!  “I’ll be calm so I’ll be ok” I told myself.

Next was what I thought was to be the exciting part, we got to see the birthing suites and maternity ward which I was pretty impressed with, still the reality of giving birth hadn’t quite sunk in even when we were in the suite.  I think this is my ignorance playing a big part again.  Upon leaving the maternity ward we were escorted back to the corridor in front of the birthing suites to be shown a section they missed on the initial walk through.

Up until now my ignorance has done it’s job brilliantly but it wasn’t strong enough to stop reality crashing down when the almighty screams of a lady in labour flooded the corridors – the midwives seem to get excited by these screams as they refer to it as the ‘transition phase’ the most painful for the woman but the most exciting for the midwives as it means this baby is a coming!  I had to try very hard not to burst into tears of anxiety and heartfelt sadness for the clearly excruciating pain this woman was in, focusing on anything but the screams was impossible and they seemed to last an hour (although I’m sure it was only 4 mins or so).   Words cannot express the horrific noise she was making – I swear someone was cutting off her leg, like in the movie Saw.

I walked out of the hospital feeling like all my efforts to avoid becoming aware of how much this is bloody going to hurt were destroyed.  I think her screams will echo in my head for the next 3 months,  to which I turned to Mum and asked, can you pre-book a ceasar or epidural?  I can’t possibly go through that!

Everyone keeps telling me that everyone deals with it differently and that it’s all worth it when you look at your healthy beautiful baby in your arms… I swear to god that if someone tells me that while I am in that much pain I will kick them in the face.. the reality is how painfree can pushing out a footbal through a piece of PVC pipe be?

Now that reality has kicked ignorance’s ass my only hope to get through the coming months is to try and believe what everyone says about the unconditional love you feel when you finally look into your baby’s eyes.  The only glimpse of hope that I have that this is true is the fact that I think I have had a touch of this with my niece who simply melts my heart every time I look at her, I can’t explain the love that I have for her and if this is just a tiny taste of what I have been told you feel for your own then I am sure I will be OK!  So baby H if you are ever reading this in the future – and maybe when you are being a 16 year old brat I’ll take you to a maternity ward to you can hear how much pain we mothers go though to bring you into this world – please know that I can’t wait to meet you!  Now that ignorance has let me down my focus will be on that heart melting moment and not the inevitable potential pain that awaits.

And on another note here is a piccy of me and my devine niece.

Oh and one of me at 24 weeks