Backtracking - Brunch

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged some pictures - so I'm backtracking a bit to get these in. In early July met up with Nafysa, Colleen and Tameeza for a little early dinner snacks at Tartine's since Nafysa was in town.

Las week - met up with Marmee, Sasha and Kristin for a pregnant women's lunch. Kristin was at 37 weeks and probably at 39 weeks now. Marmee is 2 weeks behind me. Whew, lots of pregnant hormones floating around. It was nice to hear stories of how things were going for the other girls, what they went through etc. We are all carrying our babies differently. It's a trip.

Since then, AG and I have attended 2 Natural Resources Birthing prep classes. I really like our instructor, who's also a doula. She's very straight-forward and medically inclined but with a bias towards natural childbirth. I like that she's not pushy about what decisions people want to make regarding their birthing plan, but wants us all to have all the information we need in order to make the right decision that works for us.
As we are reading the materials in this class, AG and I are leaning more and more towards a natural childbirth. When I first read Inna May's book, I thought - I'll start off doing as much as I can, but if I need an epidural then I'll take it - no need to go through the pain and suffering. What I'm beginning to realize is that our body is supposed to go through the pain. Having any type of an intervention causes a chain reaction that usually leads to either an epidural , an episiotiomy or a c-section. There's so many chemicals going through our body that starts one thing and prepares us for the next stage that if we intervene by introducing foreign unregulated chemicals that mimic the required hormone, the body responds by not making any more of the hormones needed to complete the natural childbirth process. This makes a lot of sense to us. Both AG and I completely believe in the body balancing itself out. I'm a huge fan of not taking prescription medication for anything but what's absolutely necessary. I don't take cold medication - I allow my body to go through the process of identifying and getting rid of the virus/bacteria - and I believe that's why I rarely get sick. My body has learned to fight these virus/bacteria on its own and is very good at doing so if I maintain a good immune system by eating and sleeping well.


Additionally, we're discovering that there are long term effects when there's intervention. For example, having the umbilical cord pulse out completely all the blood and nutrients before cutting it is super important for the health of the baby. Additionally, the first 45 minutes after baby is born is a huge bonding moment with mother and baby and there's so much going on that taking the baby away to clean, weigh, and measure the baby disturbs this bonding and causes some lasting effects later.


I'm not advocating that I have to have a natural childbirth or I'd be disappointed, but I sure am more aware of why it's important to us to have the baby naturally if we can. I wish more people knew about this process. If we haven't read and had this course, I'm not sure I'd know and I think that's worse than knowing and then ending up with a C-section because of circumstances.