Birth

I'm reading an amazing book on pregnancy and childbirth right now: Ina May Gaskin's Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It's inspiring, wacky, and informative. The point of view is strongly pro-natural birth, but many of the pain management and labor easing practices could be used in the hospital too.

What's blowing my mind is that she talks a lot about the sexuality of birth. I know. Sounds crazy, right? Except, Gaskin makes it sounds totally normal and sane and even, dare I say, appealing! She encourages women to get as comfortable and secure as possible. Makes sense. She also encourages lots of hugging, kissing and sensual touch to relax women and their vaginas. I guess that also makes sense, seeing as how vaginas loosen and expand when sexually stimulated and this makes it easier for large items to slip in - and out! Breast stimulation also encourages the release of oxytocin which helps with pain management and facilitates the actual birth process. This is a natural way to get this hormone, as opposed to oxytocin administered externally in hospitals that want to speed along birth.

All of this is fascinating, but reassuring too. While it's gonna be real weird to stimulate my nipples in front of my mum, I also feel really empowered by the knowledge that I (and Adam) can be more "in control" of my own birth process. At least, I can be more than some sort of passive vessel, where others poke and prod me along. It's really a strange change of attitude, but I'm sort of looking forward to birthing my son. I look forward to this experience. Before I was up for the daunting task, but viewed it as that: a marathon to be run or a mountain to be scaled, something that would be hard but I'd be proud to say I did it. Now, I'm more looking forward to the journey itself.

And getting that from a simple book is priceless.