75% of this pregnancy is over and, while it feels like time flew by, it also feels like I've been pregnant forever and still have a long way to go. Every week I get an email from Baby Center with details about the baby's development and preparatory activities for the week. This week's email highlighted the biggest fears about labor and delivery. My biggest fear wasn't even listed, so maybe I am crazy, but I worry that I won't be strong enough to push the baby out. Pain can be managed with drugs and the medical and bodily function stuff is just par for the course, and nothing the doctors haven't seen before I'm sure. But the pushing scares me to death, especially because I want to avoid the vacuum at all costs.
I was talking to a friend the other day about creating a birth plan, and I don't think I want to. I do have a few specific requests - like I want to be able to nurse as soon as possible after delivery, so all unnecessary procedures for Ian will have to wait. As far as everything else goes, I trust my doctors and I want to go with the flow and do what's best for me and the baby. Having a birth plan just means I will spend hours agonizing over finding the right plan, then will be more stressed out when the plan inevitably goes out the window and the baby does whatever he wants anyway.
4 comments:
75 percent!! That is exactly how I feel lately too - so close and yet so far. I didn't do a birth plan last time either for pretty much the same reasons you mentioned. Going with the flow makes so much sense!
As far as pushing goes, if it makes you feel any better, I did a crap job for over an hour because the epidural was so high that I couldn't feel a thing. Then, the doctor came in and took over for the nurse. He gave me some handles to hold onto and gave me better direction and, pop, out came Jack a few minutes later. Your doctors should definitely be able to help you (and nurses too when they want to. I think mine was dillydallying since the dr wasn't there).
i think if that's all your plan consists of that's fine! i mean, it's really just a place to put requests you might not think of in the heat of the moment.
Going with the flow is the best birth plan to have. My friends that have really had their heart set on one thing or another during their labors seem to be disappointed when it doesn't completely go as they imagined. The most important thing is that you and Ian are healthy when it is all over.
I was terrified about the pushing as well until I realized that doctors in hospitals deliver tons of babys, even many babies per day. Yes, it was a big deal for me, but for the doctor's and the nurses, it is a routine thing that they do all the time. That was comforting to me.
I didn't want a birth plan either. I've talked to friends who've had babies recently and we've decided to do one for things like that, "I am open to drugs, I want to nurse as soon as possible, I want the baby's father to tell me the sex of the baby, I don't want a mirror, I don't want the baby to receive the Vitamin K shot or the eye drops, I will need a prescription for a breast pump", stuff like that. Not a "this is how I want my labor to go" type of thing, but just more like a list of things that I think are important in case I get overwhelmed/too tired and forget them.
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