What is Labor? - Page 2

[Malama]

Aloha,
I just wanted to add that it's good to study birth and to try and understand it so that you are prepared... BUT...
I think it's really important not to be too much in your head! Labor requires trust in your body's ability to birth your child- you can think all you want about what's going on and how you want to birth and what it will be like, but when it comes down to it, it's all about trust and working with your body- in that moment.
I know that I was way in my head for my first birth and it was looong and hard. I ended up transporting to the hospital (though it was a beautiful birth still). It took a lot of time to learn to have that faith in my body. My second birth then was a nice 4 hours of active labor and a beautiful waterbirth.

Good luck to you!
Karen

[MysticHealerMom]

Thanks blueviolet and Malama. Absolutely. I think it involves a certain amount of trust as well as letting go and being swept up in the moment. Paying attention to what your body is telling you and letting it do it's thing instead of trying to control or overly evaluate the process. I think it probably takes some getting used to. This type of listening and being patient is a lot like yoga or meditation practice. Breathing being key, as well. It's hard to practice birthing until you've been through it, of course, but being open and having a trusting mindset I think helps more than anything else I've read about.

I don't believe that studying and thinking about it can cause problems. I think reading the wrong things about how things go wrong without learning how things work when they go right is how we get into trouble. I keep thinking, (and thinking) that I'm thinking too much. But, it's being prepared. I haven't always lived with a Continuum of women around who think birth is normal and can help me on my path. And other than yourselves, and the input you've provided, I have to work this out myself instead of just KNOWING, IYKWIM. This process works, I believe. And I'm happy with the discussion.

thanks!

[MysticHealerMom]

Some of these thoughts parallel the ideas on the Unassisted birth thread - especially some of those links to stories of unassisted birth. Thought I'd cross post, anyway:

http://216.92.20.151/discussions/sho...threadid=23542

a good place to start...

http://unassistedbirth.com/nytimes.htm

cheers,

[cottonwood]

MysticHealerMom, I love that you are posing all these questions, because it has generated some good discussion!

It *is* like the practice of meditation.

I think there's a fine line between being reasonably prepared and being too much in your head to let the birth unfold normally. I often hear birth and medical professionals claim that they can't just let go in birth because they know too much, they can't turn their brains (and their fears) off. Of course, there are different kinds of knowledge. And if I hadn't been thinking hard and deep about these things from the very beginning, I probably would have had all three of my babies in the hospital with drugs.

The key is being able to let go of your intellectualizing when you are in labor. How easy this is to do I think may be partly a personality thing, but also just whether you're used to it. Back to meditation, that's something that can prepare one for what needs to be done during birth, not that you need to meditate during birth, but it's the same process of disengaging from outside sources or experiencing them on another level. If you have practice doing that before the birth, I can only imagine it would make it that much easier to do during the birth.

[applejuice]

Labor is a head trip.

Attitude is everything