UBC Motherhood - Nesting

In yesterday's post I mentioned drinking raspberry leaf tea and eating cinnamon rolls and getting first contractions.

But wait, not so fast!

Let's rewind juuuust a little bit.

Hubby and I did a guided tour at the hospital's maternity ward. The midfwife who showed us around, was an energetic, somewhat opiononated lady. She did not approve of the the many Mothers who ask for a scheduled C-section because a spontanous birth my disrupt their schedule, because they want to pick the baby's date of birth, and / or they want to avoid birth pains.

"Take this cute baby boy here", she nodded in the direction of a crib where Valentino (that was his name) was sleeping. "His parents thought they were oh so smart and scheduled his arrival for 8/8/2008. I admit, a fancy date. Wanna know what happened?"

Of course.

"She went into labor the day before. He was born August 7, hahahaha!"

Good thing I didn't want to interfere with nature's plans myself.

I visited friends who told me their birth stories, and I purchased baby stuff.

Yes. Apart from the stroller, the changing station and the crib I refused to fill up the baby's room with stuff early on. Still somewhat superstitious. 

However, now it was a matter of days, and I figured it couldn't hurt now. My Mom took me to a baby store and shared her wisdom.

One of the most important things she (and my experienced girlfriends) told me was not to buy too many baby outfits for the following reason:

• You don't know what size to purchase. The baby may already be bigger than regular "newborn size"
• You don't know what color or prints to pick. Unless you are sure it's going to be girl, you want to stear clear of pink Minnie Mouse tops, right?
• You will get so many baby gifts, most of them being outfits. By the time you got to wear each and everyone of them once, the baby will have outgrown them

This sounded like really good advice, even though I couldn't believe the "they will outgrow them really fast" part. I mean, a baby was a baby for at least a couple of months, right?

I forgot to mention, I also attended a birth preparation course. Sort of. I had started to research much too late. Who knew you had to sign up basically the day your test comes back positive??? 

So I went to see a lady for two private sessions. She gave me a birthing ball to sit on and did a great job explaining the stages of the birth process. On one hand knowledge is power, right?

On the other hand, every time she said "normally this and this will happen" I winced inside. Cleary what she was not saying was "in the odd case it will happen differently."

Did I need to know about complications? Would knowing about them empower or stress me out?

I figured this is what the medical team was there for. I was just the Mom. 

Looking back it probably would not have hurt to do a little more research and to have a plan, like

• what if labor has progressed too far, and it's too late for an epidural?
• what is an episiotomy, and how long does it take to recover from it?
• under what conditions does it make sense to proceed to a Cesarian?

So much for "hindsight is always the wiser".

For now I was sitting tight. On my birthing ball. At home.

Imagine going into labor at a restaurant or at a friend's house an hour away? There's always that story of women giving birth in a taxi, or worse, in an elevator. I did not want to be that person!

Have you experienced anything crazy regarding going into labor?