Inhale...regroup. (strong language to follow)

So, here I am at 41 weeks. It's been an intense week of freaking out. Only today have I been able to rise to the surface long enough to start questioning where all this stress is coming from.

Two words: The medical community. Is that technically 3 words? I let them get to me either way.

I've had a really trouble-free pregnancy and here I am, toward the end, suddenly doubting my ability to have the sort of natural, normal birth I had been planning for. Why? Because by law, the midwives need to consult with the hospital at 41 weeks to make sure everything is "ok" and by 42 weeks? Oh my, all hell will break loose apparently. They will be forced to transfer my file over to the hospital, even if me and Leon are still doing fine. Never mind that a huge amount of first time mothers deliver after the 41st week. Never mind that the calculation of a birth date is a very approximate science and that although 30% of babies are born between the 39-40th week, 20% are born between weeks 37-39 and 40-42. That's a pretty high percentage for doctors to be butting in and telling you to start worrying. Why do they do this?

Even yours truly, a steadfast advocate of non-medicated, natural birth as a first option to all women, was tricked into panicking by this establishment attitude toward pregnancy as a crazy, drooling ape of a thing that must be harnessed, IV'ed and scheduled.

I've hit despair this week, by feeling that as I approached this magic brick wall time, devised by doctors, my visions of the sort of birth I could own and trust my own body with, was disintegrating before my eyes. I would be roped in and stalled up and monitored and robbed of my right to let my body and my son decide when the right time was.

Fuck that.

Seriously, it's only today, after an initial, extended, week long response of abject horror at the thought of my trust in the birth process being ripped out from under my feet by medical bureaucracy, that I snapped to my senses and said to myself: FUCK THAT!

Here is what occurred to me to get this new ball rolling. I realized that I would feel less conflicted if, for example, I started going into labour at the birthing house, with the midwife, but something went wrong, and I had to go to the hospital. That would be nature deciding that intervention was required. That I can accept. Things happen. Things can go wrong.

What I can NOT accept, is someone saying to me, well, it's the magic time that you should force this baby to come out because we say that it's taking too long. These are the same people who told me on my first ultrasound that my baby was a week older than we had calculated with the midwife because of a chart of averages of baby size and weeks. Forget that meant that I somehow got pregnant and then got my period after, according to their calculation.

I'm just saying. Doctors are not all knowing and err on the side of caution, even when that caution makes no sense and may even cause the patient more harm than help. They err on the side of caution to cover their own asses.

Now that's my rant on doctors. Yes, an inherent distrust of the medical community flavours the tea of my opinion on the topic. Will I be grateful if something goes wrong and they are able to intervene and help? Sure. There are some things doctors can be good at. Pathology. OB gyns are first and foremost surgeons, so if you need a c-section, heck, they are a good bet. If you just want to deliver you healthy baby in your own damn time without pressure, are they the best bet? No, not really.

I guess I'm blogging all this because this week, the thought of losing my belief in my right to a natural birth was a truly devastating, crushing, depressing thing. People say that what counts is bringing home a healthy baby. That sure is important. So is bringing home a healthy mom.

I know lots of women go to the hospital and are just fine with it. Lots of women even prefer having a doctor in charge and placing their trust in them. It would make these women feel more secure than taking it on themselves. I don't have any judgment on that. They would probably be scared and scarred even by being forced to go through a natural birth without the sense of security that a hospital and nurses and machines that go ping provide.

There's probably a whole big set of women that go to the hospital because it's just fine to them. No big deal. Feels natural. And that's great too.

But I'm neither of those. I haven't been able to, thus far, articulate how important it is to me to have birth that I feel connected to, that I own, that I experience fully and that I do as a team with my body and my son. It's like climbing Everest: The climb is important to the people going up, otherwise, they'd just take a helicopter.

What can I say? I'm intense about it, that's for sure. Ultimately, yes, I want a healthy child and I will do whatever it takes. I just know, that my own mental health and sense of self is deeply tied to this process. It's a big thing.

So where does that leave me now? Regrouped.

I'm brushing off the paranoia of schedules and dates. I'm brushing off the false impression that 41 weeks is late. I'm brushing off the bullshit idea that I don't have say in how this goes. Most importantly, I'm remembering that birth is a natural process that can be trusted. I can trust my body, I can trust my son's body and fuck anyone who tries to shake that out of me.

Ideally, I'll have the birth I'm hoping for. If I don't, it will be because something has gone wrong that I could not help. It won't be because I hand over my power and will. The first I can live with. The second, I can not.

So Leon, I inhale, I relax and I wait for you. I haven't feared the contractions I've had so far in preparation. I welcome them and look forward to labour starting. When you are ready, although I do hope it's soon, (I'm tired of having cocktail wieners for fingers), you and I will do this thing!

That's where it's at kitty cat.