Voyeurism

Thursday, April 4th, 2013. 12 weeks.
Okay, so I left a couple hours early from work today because I was feeling a little nauseous and a lot tired. I came home thinking I might turn on the TV or read for a few minutes and take a nap. Instead I found myself grabbing the laptop, heading to bed, logging on to YouTube and typing one word into the search box. Birth.

What am I thinking, will this be a good idea? I don't know, but there I went.

Alright, every birth on YouTube is a hippy giving birth on the floor of their tiny bathroom, in a bathtub, or in some big inflatable kiddy pool. Some even right there on their toilets. Whatever floats your boat I suppose. Strange watching a hairy woman with dreads squatting in to a creek bed while a baby falls out on to the slimy rocks. Oh my, it's so natural! This is how we are meant to do it! Well except for that camera right there, and YouTube, and this car we drove here in, oh well.

Patton Oswalt really sums up my feelings on 'natural' births in the most hilarious of ways. While it's not all exactly what I think, and it's obviously exaggerated, it is damn funny and true. Thanks Patton. Check out the video of the clip.

Mostly, I think it's important that people get to choose the way that want to do it, so if pushing out the babe on the dirt floor in your shed makes you happy? As long as it's not hurting anybody else, go for it. So shut your mouth hole about what I should do, it's my choice to make as well. If I want to try to squeeze this out in a hospital, that's what I'm going to do. and if I want to do that without medication, that's what I choose. I also have the reinforcements on standby should I need any help.

Watching these videos of birth, I'm looking at something that once may have made me scream, or throw up. I'm pretty sure I've watched a birthing documentary in school a long time ago. I was around peers so I really hammed it up and made a show of how gross it was, holding my palms flat against each other in front of me like I was praying and then trying to squeeze my face through while making aweful noises. I was the class clown, people would accept nothing less of me. Today when I watch this video it is very, very different.

I looked at this strange, private, life changing moment and realized I would have to do this too. And soon! I will do this, but I will not squat on to a dirty bathmat in a tiny bathroom with a group of onlookers making a spectical of myself. I will not perform for the camera. No camera's allowed, thank you. I will give birth in a hospital, without the use of drugs and with my husband present. I will hope that I can deliver naturally, for the love of God. That brought me to my next YouTube search, cesarean.

by Mark Ryden 'The Birth' www.markryden.com

Holy mother of God, NO! All the grunting and squatting with giant engorged genitals is nothing compared to watching a cold scalpel slicing through layers of skin, so many layers. Skin and more skin then fat then muscle and organ to reach in and pull the unsuspecting baby out. Something about it seems so wrong. I guess it will be fine if it has to happen. I was born via cesarean, my mother survived. I want to be awake when my baby meets the world, and I want to be unmedicated. I don't want my baby to be on any drugs either. This leaves me the option of being numbed from the waist down and awake for the surgery. That sounds like some kind of horror movie, but it will have to do if that is my only option.

This C-section business, I will choose not to think about too much, because I do not have any control at that point. I will not be handling my surgery. I will have to surrender and trust the doctor. Instead I will envision a smooth and natural birth. I am made for this, quite literally. I will think about how it might hurt, but how I will get through it and how empowered I will feel when it is over. If I can do this, I can do anything! and I know I can do this.