I haven’t been writing much, honestly I haven’t been doing much…

I am now at more than 39 weeks and in pain.. I had a great massage and chiro appt last week that helped me a lot for a few days, but the weekend with grocery shopping and the blessingway tired me out completely… Nights have also been rough and I seem to have a waking period at about 3am and then I can’t get back to sleep…

So my daily pattern has been being a boring mom that does just the minimum during the day while Simon is at work, making supper, eating and then heading to bed to relax (with the laptop, my mp3 player or my Nintendo DS etc…)… I don’t fall asleep any sooner than usual but at least I can be more comfortable than if I am upstairs… then sleep until I wake up for a few hours in the night and then luckily I seem to be able to fall asleep again around the time Simon gets up and I sleep for another hour or two…

Though I do enjoy many aspects of being pregnant, chances are that this is my last pregnancy and especially because of the SPD, I am feeling OK with that… I love feeling the baby move, I love the anticipation of meeting our new child, I actually love giving birth… but, I don’t want to experience this pain again…

It is amazing how the end of pregnancy seems to take over life, Simon is a bit on edge and getting everything ready to leave work at any time,  every twinge has me wondering if it will lead to another, prodromal labour for hours at times messes with your brain and every day is a waiting game…the baby isn’t engaged yet but is mostly hanging out in a good position.. I would like to do more on the exercise/birthing ball but the SPD won’t allow it… I feel OK while on the ball but it is after that is the problem…

I would also love to go for a walk but I don’t feel stable enough in the snow and Ice… (especially since I fell a few weeks ago in front of the grocery store) and I know that though it would feel good, I would be in more pain while walking and especially after…

The boys are also ready for the birth, we had an amazing talk the other other day about the uterus, the cervix and how it all works… though Khéna’s understanding is limited to understanding that there is actually a baby in there and that it will come out and have “maju”, the older boys, especially Xavier really seem to understand what will be happening physically during labour… It makes me realize that there is a quite an age difference between the oldest and what will soon be the youngest…

So, yes, tired of being pregnant, tired of the pain… but within 3 weeks it will be over, within 3 weeks it will all be forgotten, within three weeks we will be meeting be a family falling in love with the new little member… I hope it is sooner than later…

After a lot of thought I have decided to invite a friend to the birth if I feel the need…

Though I need to be alone in labour, I also need someone there to do certain things for me, bring water, bring tinctures,make tea and help clean up afterwards and of course, be around for the kids. Though Simon is an amazing help, depending on the time of the birth and the kids needs I don’t want to expect that he can do everything. Of course if things happen in the night and there is no need to be a parent then things will most likely go smoothly but if not, I think it would good thing to have someone else here.

Furthermore, though Simon’s usual route to work takes about an hour and half (we live almost 100km away) if I were to call him in the daytime when there are no express buses, the route would take about 3 hours. Depending on how labour is progressing, I am not too sure about my feelings of being a mom of three for three hours while having contractions.

The friend that I have invited is a fellow UCer, a UCer that knows exactly why I feel the need to birth alone, because she has the same reasons. I know that she will not panic, that she will not be invasive, that she will be what I need her to be. Either to take care of the kids, or be around when Simon is doing so, just be another pair of hands to help. She also lives on the route that Simon would take to get back home, so if something were to happen in the daytime, she could leave her kids with family, in the time that it takes for Simon to get to the Metro and she could pick him up and do the rest of the route together. Shaving at least an hour, if not more, off of the travel time.

It was hard decision to make, to have someone in “my space” while giving birth, but I feel a relief that if I need someone, she will be there and she will be exactly what I need. She is pretty excited too 🙂

I looked back on my old pregnancy blog with Khéna written at about the same time that I am now in my pregnancy and it reads exactly like the way I feel now…

I have to admit that I am officially tired of being pregnant. This pregnancy was pretty easy up to a few weeks ago when my pelvis started to really hurt.

If it wasn’t for this Pelvis pain I would be OK… still tired maybe but not as much as now… The worst times for me is when I am laying down, so the bed actually looks like my enemy… I can’t sleep because I hurt too much, I can’t twist and turn because the pain is excruciating… So I stay in the same position all night and just doze lightly… when I need to finally move I have to go really slowly onto my back… I can’t roll because my pelvis is locked into place so I have to lift myself up a bit to turn and then once I am on back I have to release all of my muscles and wait until I hear a big pop in my pelvis and then I can finish turning or get up… of course the first minutes up are so hard also…

Now to add to it, walking hurts and doing things out of the house is a pain…

Shopping for groceries is something that I need to gear up for because walking while pushing the cart is getting to be imposible, but with a family to feed and to shop for I just get it done and then come home, sit down and recuperate.

Besides that the pregnancy is going well… I can’t believe that I am full term now and that I could have a baby at any time… though I fully expect to go to 42 weeks again as I have done in the past, I still hope that this baby will make an earlier appearance like Colin did at 38 weeks..

But then again, my friend Gen will be hosting a Blessingway for me next Sunday, so I would like to still be pregnant at that time…

The calls are also starting to come… since I said the month of Jan for the edd, the first of Jan seemed to be a sort of deadline for some. The questions of when I will be giving birth  have started and the frustrations of some not knowing when because I won’t give a date have also started… I just answer now within the next 5 weeks and they will know after the baby is there…

I am also feeling more ready to have a new baby in the house, there are still things on my to-do list like get the car seat out and get it installed, find the baby blankets and baby socks but if a baby were to arrive before those things were done, it wouldn’t be that much of a big deal since those things are just in the cedar closet of the shed…

As long as we have the things that I want  for the birth (I bought the sink adaptor for the pool hose yesterday) and we have towels and embroidery floss etc is what is the most important for me…

Ah… the last weeks of pregnancy..

I have written this post before… and though some things are still relevant, others are not as much. I have now had the experience of birthing unassisted since then and have grown in the last 3 years.

Some people I have encountered are truly scared of birth. In their eyes, birth is dangerous. For mother and child and needs not only to be attended but managed.

Though I am not shy about my decisions, I have not talked to many people openly about my plans. However, I do not lie either. If someone asks me where I am going to give birth I will say at home, if they go further and ask if/how I got a midwife I will tell them that we don’t… The same questions always come up after that… who is going to check you? Who is going to cut the cord? and then the what if’s come out… Then I get the comment “you are so brave” or something similar… I respond to the questions simply… no one will check me and I would let a doctor of midwife do it either… The cord will be cut after birth by either Simon or I after a the placenta comes out or longer… the What if’s I don’t go into details and just say that I am ready for many situations and will deal with them at home.

The brave comment is what makes me go crazy….

I am not brave to birth at home. What is brave in my opinion is to entrust my body to someone else. I was willing to do that with my (first) two pregnancies and births and I am not happy with the way that they turned out. Of course I have two gorgeous and healthy boys but the births were long and I felt rushed and threatened. I cried many tears because I felt that I had no control, not control over my body because I knew that I had to let it do its work, but control over my treatment. I wish that I wouldn’t have had so much courage those times to trust these strangers, I wish I would have had the courage to take charge of my own health completely and would have known more when I was pregnant with the boys. Of course, I was raised in a society of fear and was taught that doctors and midwifes were the experts of birth and a woman’s body in pregnancy and that you must surrender your body over to them and trust them. I am glad however, that though I was taught that, I never could believe it…

Now, at about 36 weeks pregnant, the questions of course come in full force when I am out… People that know me a bit more and know of my last birth just ask if I will be doing the same… others that find out have the usual questions but both nearly always say the brave comment.

But what I have realized is that the brave comment often has nothing to do with being “brave” but is often just another way to say “I think you are crazy”. Whereas before I would answer with a confused face, now, I answer directly to that comment by saying that I think the brave people are those that go the hospital. It turns the table and brings up more questions about the things that I want to avoid. The power struggles, the hospital policies that have no basis in health reasons but simple bureaucracy, interventions that are still practices without any scientific backup and all the rest of the negatives of going to the hospital when trying to have a normal and natural birth.

When most people talk about the things that can go wrong they are often talking abut things that are of direct consequence of standard interventions that are often not questioned, so bringing up those risks as a reason that I want to avoid the hospital setting often brings more insight than just saying that I want to avoid the interventions. Of course I know that things can go wrong, but that is why I would rather stay away from the place that holds the most risks and knowing what I know, that is in a hospital setting.

Of course the ‘brave’ comment also seems to point towards just being out of the person’s comfort zone.

I understand that most are just more comfortable in a hospital setting or in the presence of a midwife…  I just wish that some people could understand that for many being home alone to give birth is where their comfort is at the highest. For some that is at home, for others that is in a hospital setting. Having people observe and having people around makes my labour stall, makes me go into the ‘fight or flight’ response. The more stressful the situation, the more my body shuts down and labour is hindered and being with the exact people that are hindering the birth by their presence alone, then they decide to start intervening and the cycle starts to spiral.It as already happened twice to me. The second time, my power was given back to me by the words and encouragement of a visiting midwife and I was able to get my power back, tell everyone to leave me alone and soon after I was giving birth to me second son. That experience showed me that being alone is what I need.

Whatever the reason it is being said, the brave comment often just gets to me.

It has nothing to do with being brave but with making an informed decision that I believe is best. It is about staying within my comfort zone and choosing what I believe is the safest place to give birth.

I would be brave if I did the opposite of what I am comfortable doing.