As birth becomes closer, I have been transforming my ideas about birth. When I first found out I was pregnant in early January, I knew so little about birth that I thought “Why wouldn’t I want to be medicated?” But through my birth class and huge amount of reading and midwives etc., I have turned around completely. I now hope to birth naturally, stay home as long into the labour as possible, avoid intervention, and possibly even have a water birth.
Besides working full time, graduating from my SFU writing and publishing program, taking my last art course at Emily Carr, moving and fixing up our rental house, and enduring an intense heat wave, I have barely had time to worry about birth.
Yesterday we went for a two hour walk at the UBC endowment parklands and I remembered how much I love nature. When I’m working and busy, I forget these things. It was so good to be walking on uneven ground, smelling the dampness, seeing the natural shapes of tree trunks, ferns, mosses. The bright red berries. The stillness. It made me want more of that, and less of our Vancouver neighbourhood where we worry about material loss. It’s amazing to be able to access such natural beauty in the city, I just need to seek it out more often.
Being there reminded me of the first birth dream I had in early June. I had a very vivid dream about being in early labour, and then realizing it was time for the pushing stage. I was crossing a gravel road with some people and told them I wouldn’t be able to talk to them anymore because I was pushing. I went into a lush green forest in search of sword ferns to prepare a birthing area. I like how close I felt to nature in that dream and hold on to that image when I think about the birth.
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