I am so excited to be writing a guest post for one of my favorite bloggers. Mandy is such a sweet girl and I have loved watching Bennett grow and reach new milestones. Thanks for having us Mandy, I hope you're having fun in Disney World (jealous!)
You can do it. You are stronger than you think. Your body was made to do this. You're going to do great.
I can't even count the number of times I was told these things during the last few weeks of my pregnancy. I wanted to believe them so badly. I wanted their encouraging words to take away every once of fear that consumed my mind and body. I wanted to be at peace with my impending labor so that I could focus solely on the life I was about to bring into this world.
I am honestly the biggest chicken you will probably ever meet. I purposely don't schedule dentist appointments and put off visits to the doctor. Knowing that I was going to experience the most painful moments of my entire life and there was nothing I could do to stop it was incredibly scary to me. I wanted to meet our baby Henry so badly but didn't want to go through the labor. I was a full week overdue and totally fine with it! I think most women just want to be done with the pregnancy but to me that meant labor, so yeah I was fine with Henry hanging out in there as long as his little heart desired.
Luckily for me (and for my husband, poor garrison!) I was unexpectedly admitted to triage and induced after what I thought was just a regular check up. I was told to seal my clothes in a bag and to get comfortable because I'd "probably be staying a while..." Um, terrifying! Even up to my last moments of pregnancy I was bawling and begging for them to not start my labor. As they were wheeling me into my birthing room to start me on Cervidil and Pitocin I was crying hysterically while the nurse looked at me like I was absolutely nuts.
The fact that I didn't see it coming, I didn't know I was going in to be induced that day definitely helped me. I didn't have a choice, I was already there, labor was started. I'm not going to lie, it was painful and scary. There were moments when I just wanted to give up and times when I felt like I couldn't take any more pain. But you know what? I did it. I pushed through the pain and overcame my greatest fear and when it was over I finally understood what all of those women meant. I was stronger than I thought, my body was made to do that, and I did great. If you can believe this (I know it's hard to) it wasn't even as bad as I had imagined. You know how people also tell expectant mothers that seeing your baby for the first time makes you forget the pain of labor? Turns out they were right about that too.
I, Queen of Wussland, gave birth to the most beautiful baby boy I have ever seen and it was so worth it. If I can do it, you can too.
* One thing that really helped me during labor: It's really easy to overwhelm yourself during labor. It's easy to keep thinking, "This is going to get harder/more painful?" and it will really freak you out. Don't do that to yourself! Take baby steps. Handle each moment as it comes and cross the next bridge when you get there. Don't waste your energy worrying about what's next because chances are it won't even be as bad as you think. Seriously!
