[2bluefish]

I ordered this from Laura Shanley's website and got it yesterday (thanks Laura!) - I've already read a 3rd of it. It is a hoot!! Pat stayed home with placenta previa! She hemorrhaged and then 16 days later delivered a healthy baby placenta first (painless)! She's a bit of a nut - but I just love her. I guess the thing that strikes me about he story is how resilient the human body really is. "They" have us so brainwashed that we are so delicate and break so easily, so we need all this monitoring and intervention. It's hard to kick that fear. But here this woman actually did think she was dying but wasn't afraid of it at all. Just very matter of fact... I might be dying.

It's refreshing!

 

[MsBlack]

Yes, I read it in 1978, while pregnant w/my first...and I would say everything you just did about the author and book. REading that was a great way to start my UC 'career'--first was actually 'caught' by a doc who only just arrived in time at our home (literally--another 30 seconds and he'd have missed baby's emergence). So me and dh says to ourselves, "well sh**, WE coulda done THAT all by ourselves!" Which is what we did, after that. I'd have to say Come Gently was quite the turning point for me.

 

[2bluefish]

It is a great book - the more it sinks into me the more it just resonates with every fiber of my being. I love her firm stance that pain is dangerous to the baby and mother - I totally agree with that. I've never read someone who put it so plainly. You owe it to your baby to try to have a painless birth, because it is safer.

I've gotten upset and grouchy in the past because I can't tell for sure I'm in labor until I'm in transition. I makes it impossible to plan on having special people around me. But Pat is telling me *that is the way it is supposed to be* and I don't need special people around me.

Then I think about my first birth - very easy until I hit transition. But then transition didn't last 30 seconds like Pats or 20 min like my last. It went on for hours and the longer it went on the more the pain-tension-fear cycle built up. What happened there Pat? Why did a good labor get railroaded like that? Well, I know the baby's head was malpositioned and the fact that I had AROM made it harder for the baby's head to reposition. But Pat has some other ideas too. She would have applauded how positive I was about the contractions I had while running around being active leading up to the birth - but she would have pointed out that I was misguided. Those cramps weren't preparing me for labor - they were trying to tell me I was over doing it. She would have had me resting more and not giving those pelvic muscles so much exercise to get tight and less pliable. She would have had me in a belly support (girdle) to help position the baby correctly and keep excess weight off my pelvic muscles. (I did belly binding with #2 and it helped alot.) She would have told me to lay off the calcium so my baby's bones wouldn't be so solidified before birth, so it wouldn't be so difficult for baby's head to mould. I really think she has some good points on the calcium thing - I was taking insane amounts of coral calcium. DD's placenta was full of calcium. And her head had to mold terribly to get through - and it didn't smooth out for 6 months. Her advice is kooky, but alot of here explanations make sense.

I wanted to learn hypnosis so I could handle labor even if something was abnormal - Pat had malpositioned babies painlessly, so I'm excited to see how she managed that.

I also like her point that an orgasm is a uterine contraction - I've always felt that way too. I love pregnancy orgasms, because they are "bigger". So in a way by definition labor is orgasmic - we just have to be free to enjoy it. I heard women say before that they avoid orgasm in pregnancy because it hurts so bad - that's might be a pretty deep level of inhibition?