If I knew then what I know now…

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!!

He’s here!!!!!!!

Announcing the arrival of one baby Barak born on Friday January 16th at 4.30pm and weighing in at a hefty 3.8 kgs or 8lbs and 8oz and 21 inches long.  Labour was 13 hours and nowhere near as bad as I feared!!

He was born vaginally with no epidural!!!

He’s doing well and despite some worries about bruising on his head and some hearing tests, he’s doing very well and is perfectly healthy.

I’m doing well too.  Its been an amazing experience and I have so much to process about the whole experience.

In short, his birth was the most incredible experience of my life and I wish I had not spent so much of my pregnancy freaking out about labour and delivery because not only was it not that bad, it was in itself a transformative experience.  I am in awe of my body and what it can accomplish!!

Will try to post more in the coming days but as you can imagine my schedule is not mine anymore!

Thanks to you all for the warm wishes! Can’t wait to share tales from my journey into  motherhood with you!

effacing and dilating: baby here we come!

wow, life is moving along at a fast pace.

Just came back from the doc and found out that I’m already 2cm dilated and 70% effaced.  Its amazing to me but the doc could actually feel the little guy’s head right there!  Thankfully I’m not having painful contractions so i’m counting the progress thus far as ‘free’ centimeters in terms of dilation.  And I’m hoping for even more ‘free’ ones before the painful contractions come

I’m thinking there is no way we’re doing to make it to the due date on the 17th or even my hope of giving birth on Obama’s inauguration day on the 20th.

My students’  grades  are turned in and the semester wrapped up at work, my hospital bag is packed, the baby’s room is in decent shape (even though we’re still waiting for the mattress and mattress pad to arrive), but I still don’t feel ‘ready’.  I don’t know if I ever will actually.

I’ve had horrible sleep for the last two nights.  I’ve woken up in anxiety attacks worried about the baby and unable to sleep again. Its wierd because until now i’ve been pretty possitive and able to sleep quite well through the night.  I don’t know where this fear is coming from as it seeming to hit me from nowhere.