No – not another post about preserving your virtue as a young lady, in fact this one’s at completely the opposite end of the reproductive scale. I’m waiting for my first baby to decide that he/she is going to put in an appearance; which if you believe the big pink pregnancy book could be any time from last Sunday 15^th November when my baby was considered “term” at 37 weeks.

My actual due date isn’t until the 6^th December, so another two weeks tomorrow, but I’ve been getting a spooky feeling – stronger and stronger – that Bob and I aren’t destined to make it as far as 40 weeks. Yes, yes, I know that first time mothers tend to go past their due dates as a generalisation, but the closer I come to mine the more I wonder how much of that is down to physiology, and how much is in the mind…

I’ve become pretty passionate (some might say opinionated) about the emotive issue of childbirth during my third trimester, and have been doing a lot of reading about natural childbirth and the influence of medical factors on what used to be considered a natural – as opposed to pathological – event.

More and more, I am appalled by the out-and-out fear and demonisation of childbirth that is rampant in society, along with the general mistrust of women’s bodies in terms of what they were put on this earth (biologically speaking, at least) to do.

The first time I was pregnant, I lost my baby at 8.5 weeks. Despite the sadly short pregnancy, I nevertheless had enough time to read up on the process of giving birth (in the big pink pregnancy book, incidentally) and begin thoroughly pooing my pants in panic. Not only was I finding out horrifying things about routine episiotomy – the procedure whereby a helpful physician will cut your foofy to let the baby out – and the promise of more unbearable pain than you can shake a pointy stick at, but I was reading up on the risks of epidural anaesthesia (anybody fancy a month-long spinal headache…?) and the various drawbacks – i.e. stoned babies, problems breastfeeding, babies who don’t fancy breathing – of other drug-based pain relief.

Based on the evidence at hand, I was starting to come to the conclusion that the least unpleasant, risky and traumatic way of giving birth was just to bite the bullet, book myself a caesarean section and hope to god that I didn’t end up with MRSA. I was feeling so disempowered, so frightened and so panicky that I couldn’t even bring myself to indulge my natural optimism and believe that “there must be a better way…”

Now I’ll never be glad that I lost my first baby, but what I will be profoundly and forever grateful for, is what that experience taught me in terms of how to trust my body and believe that it knows exactly what it’s doing.

When I discovered that I was going to miscarry, my birth fear kicked in again in a very real and immediate sense. I remember howling on the phone to the Early Pregnancy Unit that I wanted to book a D&C, I wanted them to knock me out, deal with the situation and then for me to wake up and have it all be over – no mess, no fuss. I was scared of the pain, scared of the bleeding that I’d been told to expect, and most of all I was so, so scared of seeing my poor baby lying on a soiled sanitary pad.  

Luckily (and yes, I do truly mean that) Mother Nature had other plans for me, and I spent the next few days on what I can only describe as a voyage of discovery about my body and its true capabilities.

I won’t go into all the gory details, but what I discovered throughout the physical process of miscarrying was that my body knows exactly what it’s doing – and I do mean exactly! A rush of hormones here, 8 hours of contractions there, and a freakishly perfectly timed loss of the baby (my body waited until I’d firmly sent my husband out to the football – I think it knew I needed to be quite alone at the critical moment) and it was over. I’m not going to say there was no pain, but there was certainly no trauma, and my body executed everything perfectly to make the process as easy for me to get through as possible – physically and emotionally.

So having been panic-stricken, terrified and desperate for medical intervention, I had been taught first hand that (for me at least – I would never judge any woman for the choices she makes in such rotten circumstances) the natural route was by far the best.

With the benefit of that experience, I was able to approach a new pregnancy with more curiosity than fear about the process of birth itself. If the heartbreaking and hopeless experience of miscarriage could turn out to be positive in the end, then surely childbirth could be the same? Surely the pain and the mess would be even more possible to cope with, since there was more than likely to be a happy outcome?

And that’s how I started finding out about the secret that nobody seems to want you to know – that childbirth has the potential to be wonderful!  

Very shortly after I found out I was pregnant again, I started looking into the possibility of having a home birth. The thought process behind this was pretty much “miscarriage at home = good” as I’d had plenty of time to reflect on how thoroughly miserable I would have been going through that experience in a random hospital bedroom. Ergo “giving birth at home must also = good”.

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as all that – not only did I have a lifetime of social conditioning to overcome in terms of what I myself believed childbirth to be (frickin’ dangerous, unbelievably painful, best done in hospital with ready access to lots and lots of drugs and a surgeon if required) I also had to help my husband come to terms with the thought of my giving birth outside the “safe” environment of the good old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

The book that finally overcame all of my negativity was Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, written by prominent US midwife Ina May Gaskin. Through observing and supporting natural birth in her community throughout the last 30+ years, Ina May has risen to worldwide fame as an incredibly successful and highly respected midwife who works hard to promote the concept of childbirth as a safe and natural life occurrence rather than an illness to be treated in hospital. Her mantra seems to be “your body is not a lemon” – a refreshingly down-to-earth and helpful approach to the general mistrust of women’s bodies in relation to childbirth. The effectiveness of this approach is pretty much borne out by her community’s incredibly low c-section rate – below 2%, compared with a frankly shocking 25% in US hospitals.

Since reading her book (I also bought her recently released Guide to Breastfeeding which is excellent as well) I have by degrees been able to melt away the residual fear of childbirth, to the point where I have managed not only to persuade, but truly convince my previously sceptical husband that a natural home birth is best for us. Of course, I am remaining realistic about the fact that in the event of a true medical emergency we will need to transfer to hospital, but if all goes well we will be welcoming Bob the Blob (which is becoming an increasingly inappropriate nickname, but hey-ho) into the world from the comfort of our very own dining room.

Anyway, before this article runs away with me altogether, back to the waiting part – which was kind of the point in the first place!

I’ve had a couple of (icky, I will spare you the details) signs that Bob’s birth might be on the way sooner rather than later. So now I’m officially waiting to go into labour, and very much looking forward to it as well! Imagine being eight years old and your Mum telling you Christmas was coming really soon, but not knowing exactly when it was going to be – well that’s pretty much where I’m at right now…

I’ve been wondering if all my positivity towards birth is really going to help me to enjoy it as the life-changing and positive experience I now truly believe it is. Or is it all just hippy mumbojumbo that’s going to result in me ending up on my back in hospital screaming for drugs despite all my preparation? If you believe the all too prevalent bearers of birth horror-stories, I am being incredibly naive in anticipating a trouble-free (if intense) experience in the comfort of my own home.

That’s why I feel it’s important to write about all this in advance of the big event. For some reason our society seems to find it perfectly acceptable for individuals to pass judgement on and undermine women’s choices concerning giving birth. For some reason, plenty of people seem to just love asking if you’re “shitting yourself yet?” about the birth – what do they think the benefit/point of such a question is? Should we not be trying to support and encourage childbearing women to believe that their bodies are not, in fact, lemons (thank you again Ina May) instead of constantly validating their fears for them?

So this is an experiment. I’m putting my birth plan out there in advance, to see if my preparation and positivity has in fact enabled me to influence my own labour experience. If women who expect fear, pain and c-sections get just that, then why not choose to look forward to hard work, intensity but an ultimately positive and fulfilling experience instead?

I’m hoping to give birth at home, without any pain relief beyond breathing and relaxation techniques, a good old float about in a birthing pool, and some gas & air if I really start to struggle. Unless there’s a true medical emergency I hope not to transfer to hospital.

I’m hoping I’ll go into labour sooner rather than later, given all the signs I’ve had and also due to the fact that I’ve not built up an emotional barrier of fear and dread against the process (for what it’s worth, I have a theory that it’s this fear that’s mostly responsible for the whole “first time mothers go past their due date” pattern). This also makes me think that my labour is unlikely to be the marathon 36-hour-ending-in-a-c-section session that can so often be associated with first time mothers.

We shall see. I’m honest enough to post the true birth story afterwards, so it will be interesting to find out to what extent the actual process measures up to my expectations and what I’ve been preparing myself for.  

So back to the waiting game. I tell you what though, if it all goes as well as I hope there will be a mahoosive bunch of flowers winging its way to Mrs I. M. Gaskin, c/o The Farm Community, Tennessee…