The Plan, Stan

As I grow ever larger, our extended family members have started to ask about our birth plan. (As if this is something we might want to think about.)

I've heard a variety of different opinions. My dad has taken the hardest line, which I find very sweet. (I like that he cares.) He says he thinks I should get an epidural no matter what. He made the point that people get pain relief for surgeries and so forth, so why not childbirth? It's a good point, but I think there is a difference between surgery and normal childbirth. Like most people, I have an ideal scenario for how this all might happen.

Now to state the obvious. Under regular circumstances childbirth is a natural process that a vast number of women have gone though since the beginning of time. Many births need no medical intervention and go just fine with the help of a midwife. I've even heard of something called free-birthing, where a woman gives birth by herself or only with her husband. I love that term. I've heard of free-balling, free-falling and free-boobing, but free-birthing was new to me. It sounds so reckless, like giving birth on horseback. Extremes aside, a natural birth without complications is an amazing thing in my mind, and that's what I want. Whether I'll get it is yet to be seen.

Ideally I will be able to deliver vaginally (sorry boys) without any strong pain medication. I want access to all of those birthing accessories that they say make the pain manageable. I want to try it, kind of like I tried skydiving, but with the anticipation that this will require a lot more personal sacrifice and something way cooler at the end.

I know my naivete must be hilarious to those of you who have gone through childbirth before, but I have this romantic notion of how thousands of women before me have done it this way, so I can too. Practically speaking, I want to feel like I'm in control of what's going on and to feel my contractions enough to be able to know when to push. I don't want someone else to tell me what is happening because I'm numb from the waist down and can't feel what's going on. And as ridiculous as this sounds coming from the mouth of a woman who has never done it before, I'm viewing this experience as I would a marathon (ironically I would never run one of those), where I presume the relief and sense of accomplishment is that much sweeter after all the pain.

Okay, so they don't give out medals for childbirth -- this birth plan would be for me, not so that everyone can say, "Oh, way to go there Em - having a baby just like everybody else." As far as others are concerned, no one other than you and your family members care how you give birth, as long as you get the baby out.

I'm trying to be mentally ready for anything. I've heard many stories of women who went into it with the same intentions I have, and ended up getting an epidural for various reasons: back labor and a lack of progression over a period of many, many hours being the most common.

So let me say that if I do end up having this sort of labor, I'm not going to martyr myself like Joan of Arc and leave my son motherless and my husband without a wife. An epidural can relax your muscles so that you can make progress. If the choice becomes that or a C-section, I'll gladly choose the former. A vaginal birth is my ultimate goal, with or without the big needle. I've heard many women breathe "God bless the epidural" after going through an experience like the ones above.

We will be having him in a hospital for a few reasons: the first being that this is where my doctor delivers. I checked into local midwives, but our insurance doesn't cover them. (The lady I talked to at Blue Care Network said, "Midwife?!" to me like I wanted to invite some character from Little House on the Prairie into the birthing room.) Secondly I want to be close to whatever we'll need in case something goes wrong. And lastly, who needs to deal with that mess at home? Not me. I respect and admire anyone who chooses a home birth (a close friend of mine did it - way to go Mal!), but as far as I'm concerned the nurses can take care of that and I'll love them for it.

So, that is our birth plan, but as they say, "We make plans. God laughs." I know two people who have had toxemia and HELLP syndrome. When this happens a C-section is usually the best option because the baby needs to get out of there quickly. In this case you need to scrap your birth plan completely.

No matter how he gets here, he's coming. I'll be his mom, and Jono will be his dad, and that's that.