The Unexpected
This Birthing Better resource is for both of you to discuss, think about and once you have worked through your Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation imagine how you can use your Birthing Better skills in any changes that occur.
Does birth ever go as planned?
The answer is yes, no, sort of, not at all. Since thousands of birth stories make up your Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation, there are women who actually had a birth very much like they imagined
Yes … ‘I kept waking up at 1am and knew I’d go into labour about that time. I did.’
No … ‘I visualized exactly how I wanted my birth to be, what type of music, who would be present, how I would handle contractions, how I’d birth in the birth pool and how I’d bond immediately to my baby. Did it happen like that? Not at all. I couldn’t stand the music, our midwife was sick, I didn’t handle the contractions well, our hot water wasn’t working so we couldn’t fill the pool and after the birth I felt like an alien and didn’t want to hold our baby.’
Sort of … ‘Well, I’d always envision birth to be pretty terrible. My mother told me it was the worst experience she had ever had but my mother-in-law said her births were ok (‘You get through them’). So I think emotionally I identified with my biological mother rather than the one by marriage … makes sense. Anyway, my birth was sort of like both. For most of it I felt it was ‘ok’ and felt really good. The last 2 hours were terrible and over the top.’
Not at all … ‘I was absolutely terrified about birth. My first birth was the worst thing I had ever experienced. I put everything in place to get to hospital, have an epidural (I would have chosen an elective c/s if my doctor had permitted it) and hope like the dickens that it worked better than last time when I felt pain on the left side but not on the right. I was desperate and imagined all sorts of terrible things. Anyway, I got put at 3am to go to the bathroom. I had felt a bit crampy all day. I got on the toilet, my water broke and I felt my baby move down into my birth canal. I shouted at my husband who bolted into the bathroom to see me deliver our son on the floor. I can honestly say I felt almost nothing … no pain and my baby just seemed to slide out without even a push. Weird’
The old adage so true
There is no way to know what your birth will be like. This is so very true. If you’ve had more than one baby, you know that each birth is different from each other.
Do we wish that we could have the birth we imagine? Sure … most of us would like to have heaps of control over this experience. Do we prepare for the reality of how unknowable childbirth is? Nope … we do everything we can to try to control this experience. Do we get unsettled by the prospect of facing something so unknowable? You bet … our emotions range from anxious to excited and this is unsettling in its own right.
One thing is for certain there will be many elements of your birthing experience that will be nothing like what you thought it might be. In fact, you probably don’t have a clue as to how many tiny details cannot even be imagined just because you have not attended hundreds of births.
‘I didn’t know that I could be so sensitive my husband’s breath’.
‘No one told me that my wife would want to be touched so much … she’s never been touchy-feely’.
‘No one told us that our baby could look like it was cut from a block of cheese with all that white stuff so thick all over’.
‘I couldn’t have imagined that I had to concentrate SO hard on relaxing’.
Even birth professionals can be surprised!
‘I had never seen a face presentation and I’ve delivered several thousand babies.’
‘It’s not uncommon for a twin to be there without anyone knowing.’
‘It’s much more common than believed that a baby is bottom down when everyone thinks it’s head is down. And … it’s not uncommon for a ‘diagnosed’ breech actually be a head down baby.’
In fact, you already know how the unexpected is part of your life now that you are pregnant! Your pregnancy has probably many aspects that were unexpected … and you’ve had to adjust.
The reason the unexpected is so prevalent
There is one reason for all of these unexpected things, feelings, emotions, physical changes etc … you are not alone. By adding another human being into your body you then have your own beingness to deal with and the beingness of your baby. Expect the unexpected.
‘I was told I’d have morning sickness … nothing’.
‘I was told the morning sickness would go away after the first three months. I vomited throughout my pregnancy.’
‘I was surprised it took so many weeks before I felt my baby move. I was beginning to think it was all a hoa
‘My wife loved sex even more when she was pregnant. I didn’t imagine that.’
‘My wife lost all interest in sex once she got pregnant. I didn’t expect that.’
‘My wife got such big boobs!’
The unexpected can be external to you
There are many unexpected things that go on outside your body but they are all related to and impinge on the fact you are pregnant.
‘The car won’t start when I went into labour and we didn’t make it to hospital’.
‘The weather was so bad we had to call an ambulance to come and get me.’
‘Ever have a baby during a hurricane? I did.’
‘The hospital had a major fire two weeks before my due date and I had to travel 2 hours to the nearest hospital’.
How to deal with the unexpected?
Pregnancy and giving birth changes both of you. In a symbolic fashion you both are moving from your adult phase into your parent phase.
Every beginning is a consequence – every beginning ends some thing. ~Paul Valery
This alone is phenomenally huge and significant. One thing all children want to do is grow up to become an adult so they can control their lives. Adults are in control although you know that’s a bit of an illusion.
But you do have much more control over your life and choices once you become an adult. This is both good and bad. You are now responsible in a way that you weren’t when you were a child.
That is all about to change. You are about to lose a lot of control. This is good. There are some wonderful benefits:
- You become more tolerant of your parents and realize they tried to do their best and actually were not perfect nor will you be!
- You’ll need to become more adaptable and tolerant.
- You’ll need to become more creative.
- You’ll get to relive another childhood through the eyes of a parent and stay young.
- You’ll increase your wisdom with each child.
Grow your ability to expect the unexpected and grow your capacity to accept change.
Unexpected in childbirth
This is where your Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation excels. Giving birth in all its forms … in hospital, at home, natural or medical, vaginal birth or Caesarean delivery, with a midwife or doctor … is ALWAYS an activity you have to do just because you are pregnant now.
Just like you, as a woman, are transforming your own life from being an adult to becoming a parent (even if this is your 10th child you renew your commitment to being a parent), your pregnancy will transform into giving birth.
Fortunately the activity of giving birth occurs in one finite period of time. Unlike the rest of life and even the months of pregnancy where the unexpected can happen over many years or months, childbirth is a confined activity … even for women who have long labours.
This is good news because you can have a great deal of control over the unexpected. No, you can’t control whether the unexpected happens. You can have your Birthing Better skills to use even when the unexpected happens.
Your Birthing Better skills adapt to change and they act as an anchor to all of your behaviors. The reason for this success lies in the fact that your Birthing Better skills revolve around your body. You always will breathe. Your body will always be in some posture or position.
You always have the ability to choose how you relax your body, how to adapt your position to make yourself as comfortable as possible and how you inhale or exhale.
Reducing life down to an inhalation or exhalation might seem very bizarre as a way to deal with the unexpected.
Your choice
Even within your body you have no control over automatic physiological processes. You may have more control over how you think or what you think about. You may have control over your emotional responses.
You always have the choice to control how you inhale next. You might spend very little of your time doing just that. But right now, you can deeply inhale by choice. And you can deeply relax on the subsequent exhale.
You can choose right now to soften and relax your shoulders or tension at the base of your neck and head. Mostly you will not exercise this conscious ability. But during the activity of giving birth, this is your ultimate anchor. As basic as this sound, you never have to feel out of control when you know you have choice.
‘My wife was amazing. We didn’t expect the birth we found ourselves in. We won’t have wanted to find ourselves on an airplane 33,000 feet above the Pacific ocean and having a premature baby. Everyone appreciated how calm we were. This is directly as a result of knowing we had the skills to stay relaxed and focused in our breathing. Thankfully, 4 hours later we landed with our wee lad in arms.’
‘We had every intervention in the world … both natural ones and then medical ones. None of these we expected. Thankfully we had our Birthing Better skills. When nipple stimulation, having sex and castor oil didn’t bring on the labour at 43 weeks, we still had our breathing and relaxation skills. When inserting a hormonal suppository, rupturing the membranes and induction did not bring on the labour, we still had our relaxation and breathing skills. Once labour eventually started but didn’t progress and we accepted augmentation, we had our skills. Even during the surgical birth … finding out that our baby’s cord was only a few inches long … and the placenta was grown into my wife’s uterus … we still had our skills. We never, ever stopped using our skills. It was our skills alone that remained consistent and created our bubble. As strange as it sounds, we believe we had a natural birth. We never felt out of control.’