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My bags are (half) packed, I'm ready to go...

2 January 2006, 20:27

Well, it’s official kids, at 37 weeks, MiniMc is now fully-cooked so this bun could charge out of the oven any day now. As if on cue, I got my first stretchmark the other day. 4 tiny little red marks on the top of each blossoming hip. And I’ve been having what I think are Braxton Hicks contractions (dress-rehearsal contractions), lovingly referred to in these parts as Hickston Bracks contractions.

Just reading about other women’s experiences of childbirth, I wonder if I’m being terribly naive about my approach to childbirth. I’m confident that I’ll be able to handle the pain of labour, just by, well, handling it. Mums-to-Be do all kinds of things to prepare themselves for labour, attend hypnobirthing or JuJu technique classes, use an epi-no (eek, don’t ask, in fact, do ask ...), but I’m always like “Nah, I’ll be right. It’ll be painful, but I’ve got a job to do and I’ll just, you know, deal with it ...”

Just in the last couple of days, though, my herniated disc has returned with a vengeance and I had to accept the fact that maybe I won’t be able to have an active birth and will need to have an epidural which I really don’t want to have. I’m off to the physio tomorrow and will also give acupuncture a go in the next week to see if I can’t knock this herniated bastard on the head. I am nothing if not a stubborn f%^ck. We’ll see. Que Sera Sera. Blah Blah Blah.

Posted by Kinki on 2 January 2006, 20:27
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  1. The one for birth preparation looks just like the one for incontinence therapy, just a different colour…

    Good luck Kinki.
    — Sharky    Jan 4, 11:53 AM    #
  2. Good luck, and don’t be too disappointed if you end up needing a c-section. It happened to me after months and months of ‘preparing’ myself. In fact most of my friends have needed to have last-minute c-section births for various medical reasons.
    :)
    — Deb Harrison    Jan 4, 12:06 PM    #
  3. Good luck Kinki! My mother-in-law (Gynaecologist and surgeon) would say “How primitive of Westerners to force women into childbirth without a last-minute anesthesy”. She battered the German doctor at my son´s birth to “finally get civilised” :-)
    — Ferit    Jan 7, 02:16 AM    #
  4. good luck!!! my thoughts will be with you until we hear the good news :)
    — gleek    Jan 7, 03:37 AM    #
  5. I’ll pray and wish for you. Hope to hear the good news soon.
    — rachel    Jan 8, 01:21 AM    #
  6. The Epi-No would make for quicker return to great sex if you use it in the “no-no” weeks after delivery. You are going to be super in delivery. Good luck to Dad, he’s the one who needs it.
    — Leonard    Jan 8, 12:44 PM    #