My Quirks Part II: Childbirth

I believe in Natural Childbirth!

Yes, I'm one of the crazies out there who don't take any pain meds when giving birth. I'm honestly not sure where this practice began, but here are some of the things that I believe played a role in making up my mind.

One of my very best friends (since 8th grade) got pregnant our junior year of High School. This was a life changing event for me. One of the things that I did to help prepare me for the birth of her wonderful daughter was to write my research paper for my AP Comp and Lit class on child birthing options. I wanted to know what she was going to go through, and what better way than to spend months on end researching and writing a 25 page paper over it?! (Little did I know that this would in NO WAY prepare me for seeing her in labor or going through it myself years later!) During this research I read all of the pros and cons that go along with natural birth, medicated birth, epidurals, cesarean sections, water births, etc. At the time, I was totally convinced that I was going to do a water birth. I thought it was awesome, and the best option for introducing my baby into this world.

My mother and mother - in -law both gave birth to all of their children naturally. My mom has always taught me that childbirth is a temporary pain. You know it's going to end...and when it does, you have the BEST gift ever given to you here on earth.

I am a Believer. I believe that God created women's bodies with the capability to birth children. I also believe that He made them to take care of pregnancy losses. When I had my miscarriage I wouldn't let the doctors do a DNC until my body miscarried on it's own. I believe that sometimes God works miracles, and I wanted to give Him the time to work it if it was in His plans to do so that time.

My husband and I have also chosen to have private births. Just him and I in the room (with the nurses and Doctor of course). I would love to have my mother and sister experience the birth of my children with me, but I have found that there is something very emotional about meeting your child for the first time with the one and only other person that helped create it. It is an amazing bonding moment just to have your own little family.

All of that said - I encourage all of you who are pregnant or who are hoping to become that way to do the research. Find out what the medication (IV or epidural) can do to your baby, and decide...is the short lived pain (yes, even my 20 hour labor I consider short lived) worth bringing your baby into the world in the way it was intended to? I decided it was - and I'll never regret it!

**I want to end this post with a reminder that I am really using this blog as more as a journal for my children. In fact, I print each of these out and am keeping them in a binder for them. I'm hoping that when they get older they will find my thoughts and outlooks on the world interesting. That it will give them a window into who I was at this age.