3 More Days

Well, in 3 days Evan Brian Castrucci will be here. I’m full of a lot of different emotions but am basically focusing on what needs to get done: putting together his room (furniture finally came yesterday), laundry, getting ready for guests, cooking so I can have food ready to go in my freezer, and trying to give my cats TONS of love to bide them for a while.

This will be my last post for some time, but I wanted to share one final thing with you: Natural Childbirth.

Even though it’s highly likely my labor will end in a c-section, I’m going to try and give birth vaginally and I will be trying to do this naturally. No, I didn’t just say I’ve been smoking crack the past 6 months (even though that is how people usually react when they hear what I’ll be attempting to do) I simply said that I’m going to try and let my body do what it knows how to do (although it supposedly knew how to get pregnant and I needed medical intervention for that). For this, I wanted to share with you why I chose natural birth as what I wanted to do.

Throughout the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy, I conducted many highly unscientific and unreliable surveys with women who have given birth. Basically, I asked them about their birth stories and I asked them to be as honest as possible (I don’t believe in not telling pregnant women your truth, we should know possible outcomes).

Here is what I remember hearing from women who chose to give birth with an epidural. For them, birth was:

• Something they got through
  
• Not as bad as they had anticipated
  
• Barely a bother since they were high from the epidural
  
• Worth it because they got a baby at the end
  

Here is what I remember hearing from women who chose to give birth naturally. For them, birth was:

• An amazing moment where their bodies worked in conjunction with the baby to give birth
  
• Uncomfortable, but being able to be in the moment, to feel their child emerge into the world was indescribable
  
• A moment filled with love and awe

So, from my poorly planned and epidemiologically flawed survey, what I gleaned was that the women who gave birth naturally had an experience with their baby (they first crew only ever mentioned the baby as an after item) that they remembered as wonderful, not as a trial. Having this information and already being someone who leans towards the non-medical, I felt there was no other choice for me, I would like to be there with my child when he enters the world.

For me, it’s that simple. I don’t necessarily believe that naturally birthed children are smarter or less traumatized, or any of that. I simply believe the experience is something than can transcend.

But… remember those clichés I had at the bottom of my “Intermission” post from August 13? You don’t? Well… take a second, scroll down and look at it. I’ll wait for you.
Welcome back, now let’s see how those play into this situation (mostly the one about God’s bizarre sense of humor).

Once we decided on natural birth, we enrolled in a class and started planning… can you hear God laughing in the background? I, who hate planning, needed to plan to be prepared for my choice. Well, here we are now, 10 weeks later, and my baby is so big that I’m sure my birth will be about medical intervention – not natural in any way. This is the main reason I hate planning, the let down when things out of your control mess with your plan.

And yes, I know that however Evan comes in to this world is the best way… but that thought process doesn’t follow my plans.

Anyway, when I get back with a baby and find some time to write, I have no doubt there will be entertaining stories from the hospital. It just doesn’t seem possible for Brian and I to do anything without it turning into a sitcom… hmm – is this reality or our perception – perhaps something to explore later.

Wish me luck and thanks for reading!