So, I have been thinking about my upcoming labour and birth again.

Because you know, and you can call me crazy, but this time I really am kinda looking forward to squeezing a Watermelon out of a jelly bean. Well, you know what I mean.

I didn’t really get to do that with my first. Nope, my first labour didn’t go at ALL the way that I planned. Not even a little bit. And I had planned a heck of a lot regarding how it was supposed to go.

So ever since then, I have been thinking (cough cough obsessing cough) about what I could do to get myself to have the labour (and highly likely also an episiotomy) of my dreams.

I have booked myself a superstar Doula who coincidentally, was the clever lady who encapsulated my Placenta for the birth of my first son. And I will be meeting with her in a couple of weeks to talk about all things Vagina, and the babies that come out of them.

Because although I wasn’t able to have the birth I had wanted for my first, I would really love to give it a red-hot go for the second. And my Doula is the first step in how I plan on achieving it. I am hoping that with her experience, she can act as a coach for me. In life I need that a bit.

I need someone who will eyeball me and tell me I can do it, what to do next, and where to put my flailing body parts. Someone who wont freak out over me freaking out when the pain gets too intense. And someone who will tell me to snap the fruit tree out of it if (when) I start to panic. Someone who can guide me back onto the right track when I need to focus the heck out.

The second part of this plan, is to hopefully change my overall thinking about this birth, based on my experiences of my first.

As part of what I thought was my new plan, I started reading a book all about birthing with confidence. How to do it. Where to get some (confidence that is). How to Birth Like A Boss and all other kinds of Birth Birthy Birthing stuff. Vagina’s. How to roar like an animal and embrace my primal nature and all of that.

I read half of it only, at first.

Because whilst it does have some intriguing information in it, the more I read, the more I actually feel shamed from it. Which I know is the complete opposite of the writers intentions. I started to question whether this kind of thinking was going to suit this birth.

Whether it was too aligned with my thinking during my first birth which I totally failed at.

It explained that during my first birth, that I was naive. Meaning I went into my first birth thinking it would all be hunky dory. That it would all be easy. That I would cough and out would flop my little baby. Jesus, I wish that had been the case. Instead my babies spine rubbed too much on my spine so my body (I think) clung on to that little human wanting the pain just to freaking stop.

But I don’t think that I was really that silly. I knew that it would hurt like hell. I knew that it would be the hardest “marathon” of my life. But I just thought that it would be something I would be able to cope with like a champion.

But I could not. Because in the end I didn’t expect either the ferocity or the unrelenting length of it.

I did not expect that I would be hit by a pre-labour so cheeky and consistently intense, that it would have robbed me of my sleep for three and a bit days by the time I even checked into the hospital. Yep, I was so exhausted that I was desperate for an epidural 10 hours in. My boof head baby was refusing to budge anywhere towards the exit route, and I wasn’t dilating at all. Brilliant. Shit.

But that’s what this book talks about. It basically says that I was “holding onto the baby” subconsciously. I remember it a little differently though. I would have given the kid $1,000 just to get the frick out of my body. It just wasn’t happening.

The book also tells me that my choice of an epidural 12 hours in (well, actually 86 hours in if you count the three days prior which I bloody well do as they were all hard as hell work) was essentially what led to my having an emergency c-section. Forget that I had lost the ability to cope or to grasp the focus or the energy to get through it.

So, this is where I shut the pages of the book. And then I threw it across the room, in a rage. How dare these pages and these words accuse me of just not being strong enough to birth my own son? And how dare it imply that my c-section (obviously my fault because I wanted the Epidural) had led to my complete inability to breastfeed, because I had not given my body the chance to go through the full process.

I got frustrated. I felt shame. I felt disappointment. I felt angry at myself. Then I thought about it over some chocolate. And I picked it up again.

Some of what the book says may be true. And some of what it says bloody well may not be.

But isn’t that too heavy a weight to put on a woman’s shoulders?

Should it really matter how a woman births her own child, as long as that leads to a happy and healthy baby? Because forcing a mother to think that anything less than a pain-free birth is a FAILING on her behalf is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard.

Even if I can’t have a VBAC for this birth then in no WAY will I have failed.

My incredible body will have housed, nourished, supported and given the strength of life to my little human and will damn well be bringing it into this world however it can. And however that may be, it will be the right way.

Because EVERY BIRTH IS RIGHT. And every birth happens the way that it was SUPPOSED to for that mother and baby, for that experience, for their family.

I choose this time to REFUSE to think of my birth however it happens as anything else other than powerful, incredible, wild, natural and totally the way it is meant to be. And I choose to love myself for the strength that I, like every birthing mother throughout the ages posses. I will be the wild warrior woman fighting for what I hope for. The healthy birth of my child.

There is no failure. There will only be power. Raw and Primal.

It will be EPIC. And it will be my own experience. My own creation.

And I cannot wait.

Do you have a birth plan for your impending labour? Or did your birth go completely differently to what you had expected? Leave a comment below, and tell me all about it as I would love to hear from you!

Also, would you like to share YOUR birth story with the mummalifelovebaby tribe?  If so, leave a message via the contact box below, and I will send you the details on how YOU can be a part of it! You might see YOUR story published next! xxx

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