a summary of the past 2 weeks

I had said in my last post that I would keep updates coming.  My bad for not actually POSTING the updates.  I have kept a somewhat ongoing diary of each day on my phone though.  And here it is.  Clearly, you can see how each day is a battle... physically and mentally.

January 16-- had (what Elizabeth later identified as) some mild contractions when I laid down for bed at the end of the day.  She said this was likely to happen off and on, and that i needed to let her know if it got to the point where I had to work through each one.

January 17th-- felt heavier and like I was carrying lower than normal all day, was very busy and on my feet a lot.  Got a nap, but around 8:45 had to lie down, and the same dull back pain and abdominal cramps from the night before came back.  Nothing that must keep my concentration, but hard to ignore too because I feel like it's signaling that things are going to get rolling in the next few days.  Feeling pissy and emotional.  Want to cry because things aren't getting done and I'm not allowed to do them.  If everything were ready my mind might let my body do its thing, but I feel like these last minute details are what's keeping me from going into active labor.

January 18th-- some mild contractions in the afternoon.  Barely noticeable, but there.  These beginning contractions are way different than what I remember.  A lot more tolerable than anything I ever had with Roscoe.

January 19th--  5 am woke up to go to the bathroom and started contracting again when I laid back down.  They've been coming and going in waves now for an hour.  I was preparing mentally to have the baby tomorrow, maybe I'm wrong?

January 21st-- first contraction since late lunch yesterday came around 2:40.  It was the first decent one yet that required any sort of thought to get through.  More around 10 pm.  Had 3 contractions in the span of 20 minutes.  Expressed reaching the point of getting frustrated with contractions that didn't seem to be going anywhere.  Mark told me that he thinks my biggest enemy in labor is my mind.  I tend to agree.  Working now on relaxing and letting my body do its thing.

January 23rd-- Felt like today was it.  When nothing happened by the end of the day I was feeling very down.  Becoming weary of daily contractions that "aren't doing anything."  Whether or not they are dilating me, I know these contractions are beneficial and warming my body up.  But my emotions have a hard time accepting it.  It's definitely a battle between my heart and my mind.
It's one thing to know that a due date is not an expiration date, it's another thing entirely to be aware of that but experiencing contractions from 37.5 weeks.
The contractions picked up today more than ever.  More of them more often, but still irregular.  Almost 11 pm now and I'm hoping to get a decent amount of rest tonight.  Although I feel contractions may interrupt that sleep.

January 24th-- Doesn't this baby know his due date is still over a week away?  It's fine for him to be "overdue."  But there's really no need to fake me out with so many on-off-on-off contractions.  Mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting.

January 26th-- Right now I'm good.  Nothing on the physical front.  I think I've reconciled in my mind that I'm ok with this lasting another week.  My due date still isn't til a week from tomorrow.  And I never imagined that I'd last that long, but that doesn't mean he'll come early.  And I know it'll be a challenge once he's here, and nothing will be the same again (even though I'm excited about that).  So right now I'm enjoying time with Roscoe while he's still my only little boy.  And resting as much as possible.

January 28th-- After a couple days of nothing and being ok with that, at 11 pm as I tried to start relaxing to sleep, I got a few contractions.  Just going to breathe, hopefully go to sleep.

January 30th-- not gonna lie, compared to the previous birth, these contractions feel good.  They feel like everything I had expected but didn't get to experience with Roscoe.  "It's a good pain," "they feel like they're accomplishing something," "it's uncomfortable and painful, but you can breathe through them."  Right now as they come I'm just relaxing and enjoying the fact that they're warming my body up for the real thing.  Elizabeth encouraged me yesterday to just ignore them until I couldn't possible anymore.  I'm in a lot better spirits today than I was a week ago with still being pregnant.

Don't fear the normal

There have been so many things about this pregnancy that are different than Roscoe's.  The first time, everything was so new to me and I knew that I wanted a natural birth, but didn't know exactly what that looked like.  And that made me want to keep it all to myself--the whole experience.  I didn't want to broadcast what was happening as it happened to me because I didn't know anything about it experience wise.  That's why, if you knew me then, one day I was pregnant and then *bam* there were pictures of Roscoe online.  Only a handful of people knew that I was in labor when I was in labor.  The biggest reason for that was because I wanted privacy, worried that the stress of everyone pressuring me about how things were going would only cause my body to slow down.  Maybe I was right.  Maybe I was wrong.  Who knows.  It was a complicated birth regardless, and whether or not having it all to ourselves helped or hurt the process isn't worth trying to figure out now.  It happened.  And I apologize if my selfishness for the kind of birth I wanted left you hurt or offended that you didn't know the details of what was happening when.

This time, however.....

I have a totally different approach.  There are so many women who fear birth.  I did at one time.  And I honestly feel that our culture is to blame for that.  We've taken something so natural to the essence of women and created a monster out of it.  A big, ugly looking, scary, "it's-gonna-eat-me-if-i-get-near-it" monster.  It shouldn't be that way! And with this labor and birthing experience, I'm hoping to share my experience and journey in an attempt to normalize labor and childbirth.  I know the circle of people that read this is a small one, but if it can positively affect even one person, then I'll be happy.  

So as I experience these first twinges of labor pains, I want to talk about it, normalize it.... Let people know what I'm going through so they can see what a natural birth looks like.  And not be scared of it.  The way the woman's body was designed is so fascinating.  And we're constantly told lies about our bodies prior to birth.  One of the most common I hear from people is "my pelvic bones are too small to birth, my doctor told me I have the smallest ones he's ever seen."  And I'm not mocking women who have believed this lie.  If I had a doctor tell me the same thing, I'd believe it too.  Why wouldn't you?  They're supposed to know everything about birth...  Here's the thing.  At this moment, my pelvic bones are probably too small to pass a child through.  Maybe, maybe not.  But at the beginning of pregnancy? Definitely!  No woman's body is ready to give birth when the doctor usually tells her that her pelvic bones are too small.  That's the amazing part of the design.  During childbirth, my body will release a wonderful array of hormones responsible for different things.  One of them (I'm not my midwife, I can't tell you the name of it) basically allows the bones in my body to unhinge themselves and separate/stretch out to make room for the baby to pass through the birth canal.  The tailbone even swings out (it's normally curved inward slightly) to make room.  That's the one my midwife was concerned about before Roscoe, because I had a tailbone injury a year or so prior to his birth.  But a few visits to the chiropractor insured that everything was ok... (Yes, I could feel the pain in my tailbone during birth, but it wasn't enough to keep me from birthing.)

So the one time I've given birth?  Man, Roscoe's labor was hard.  He wasn't in the correct position.  Every second of every contraction was the most terrible thing I've ever experienced.  Back labor is no joke.  And anyone who has been through it can testify to the severity of that kind of pain.

What if that happens again?  Well, that's gonna suck.... But I wouldn't trade the natural birth for anything, after having been through it once already.  So he wasn't in the right position..... He was still born.  It still worked out.  Even though I "didn't know what I was doing" and had no way of knowing what was ahead of me when labor started, my body still handled it.  There's crazy ridiculous insane strength and courage inside of every woman to give birth, but as a whole, we're too scared to trust our bodies and instincts to try it, mainly because we believe the lies that we're told about birth.

Sure, this time around I'm hoping for a correctly positioned baby, to facilitate a calmer, more peaceful birth than the first.  Who wouldn't hope for that?

But regardless, I'm not going to allow myself to fear the process.  I'm made for this.  And if you're the average woman, you are too.  I'm not a super hero because I birth my children at home.  But I am blessed to know about the birthing process, and that's what I want other women to have.  Knowledge.  I know too many sad stories of women who just didn't know their options, and consequently didn't get the chance to let their bodies work naturally.

So in the coming days I hope to make more posts about what's going on with my body and what I'm experiencing pre-labor-wise.