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A Real Pain in the Placenta


June. 17

Would you like to know a little something about me? I like to have control. You may or may have not noticed that about me. It has it's good points and it's bad points. I'm working on the bad points and your daddy is my biggest inspiration for that. But for the most part I like my need to have control over myself. I am and always have been my own boss. That aspect of me has kept me out of a lot of trouble, especially when I was a teenager. My need to have control over everything I did kept me from following the wrong crowd and doing things just because - someone else did it so why shouldn't I? A very large part of me hopes you inherit that part of me. It will cause me copious amounts of frustration I'm sure but in the end I'll know at least that NO one will make you do anything you didn't want to do. And that will be comforting.

Part of my need to control stimulates my need for knowledge. If something is going on around me I need to know everything about it. Knowledge is power you know. The more you know the better equipped you are to handle any situation. With being pregnant that means that I NEED to know everything! I can't absorb enough information. But if any twist or turn should come, and twists always do with pregnancy, I'll be prepared. Everything is less scary when you know what is going on.

With all my research I realised that all the medicine and pain killers that are available out there to ease the pains of labour can actually be quite harmful. They are so vastly used in every day practice that I had only assumed they were completely safe. Not the case at all! Epidurals for example have a plethora of negative side effects. So much so in fact that if you want one you have to sign a waver stating that if anything goes wrong the hospital is not viable for the end results.

The part that I find the least comforting is the knowledge that the baby comes out drugged up. The baby can take up to 6 weeks to filter out the narcotic from their system causing the baby to be drowsy upon birth, lack of muscle control, inability or problems suckling and feeding, decreased ability to track an object visually or to shut out noise and bright light, irritability and inconsolability . There were at least 19 other side effects on the mother but for me the side effects on my child were the deal breaker. If my child was going to suffer in order for me to have an easier labour then there was no way in HELL I was going to allow that to happen.

So it was decided upon. I am going to have a natural labor. And hence forth more research resumed. That was when I decided upon my current birth plan. I am so completely eager about this plan that I have absolutely no fear of giving birth only pure excitement.

I am going to give birth in the water. If you know anything about me you would know that I'm a fish. I adore everything about the water. As a child I would spend umpteen plus hours in the pool. My lips would be blue, teeth chattering, skin bubbled up like an over dried prune and I would insist that I had not spent enough time in the water. As an adult I spend vast amounts of time in the bathtub. It's my sanctuary. My happy place. So it only seemed natural that I would deliver you in the water.

It will take place in a birthing pool. The water is heated which calms the mother, eases the pains of labour and relaxes the muscles. The buoyancy of the water lifts the uterus, baby and belly upwards, taking all the pressure off of the pelvis allowing the body relief from the stress of contractions. Thus the body stops producing adrenalin and starts producing oxitonin and endorphins, the bodies natural pain killers and mood enhancers. Labor is sped up and you will be born into a warm pool of water just like the warm pool of water you've been living in for 10 months.

Sounds perfect right? Well it is except Kristin called us yesterday to tell us that although the ultrasound shows you are healthy and developing normally, my placenta implanted too low and that if it doesn't move by the time you are due I can't have a natural labour. I may in fact need a c-section. My worst nightmare. It also means that daddy and I have to be very careful. That means no hanky panky or late night wrestling matches. We can't do anything that may upset my placenta. The placenta is the fluffy tissue that filters out all the bad stuff from my body and lets in all the good stuff to feed you with.

The good news is that Kristin says that 90% of the time the placenta will move up as the uterus grows thus allowing me to have the natural birth I intended on. I'm not worried. I have complete faith that everything will turn out beautifully. It always does in the end.

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