I keep thinking that if I knew six months ago what I know now I would have had so much more fun with my pregnancy.

I spent so much time and energy flipping out and fearing the labour and delivery that it seriously cut into my enjoyment of pregnancy.  Turns out I had nothing to worry about and I should have just chilled out.

1. Yes labour and delivery are painful but its doable and bearable with the right kind of pain medication.  I went into the process thinking that it was either an epidural or nothing.  Kumbe there are IV medication options which is what I took and it worked perfectly for me.  Every hour the nurse would load me up with a dose and I would continue labouring. I could still feel the contractions and the pushing but the meds just took the edge off.  Halfway through the nurse looked at me and told me that I was well on my way to doing this without an epidural and for the first time I believed that i was capable.  That nurse was awesome!

2. My body is capable of a lot more than I’ve ever given it credit for.  I’ve had a really rough relationship with my body for years now.  Coming to America as a teenage girl to a family where the women had serious body image issues themselves was horrible for my self image.  Consequently i’ve wasted the last decade in conflict with my body.  I feel like labour and delivery have ended a long civil war.  My body has won.   I love it, I respect it, and I am in awed amazement at what it can do.  For example, I’m already weighing less than I did on the day that I found out I was pregnant!!  This is not because I went on some extreme diet during the pregnancy.  I just decided that I wasn’t going to care about dieting and that I was just going to focus on eating healthy but eating what I fancied.  Nausea took care of my tendancy to overeat and the rest is history.  I’m hoping to parlay my newfound respect for my body into a new healthy lifestyle.  wish me luck!!