Today I’ve been reading about birth. I’m planning a home birth which, if you know me, won’t be surprising. And every so often I have a little binge read about birth things.
The first time I read about creating a comfy ‘nest’ area for early labour I couldn’t really imagine it. But today when the ‘nest’ was eluded to I started getting excited about the ‘nest’. About what could be in the ‘nest’. About me being in the ‘nest’.
This might partially be because we’re actually moving soon, and for some reason I can imagine the ‘nest’ in the new place much easier. Or maybe it’s because I’m getting more ready to contemplate the birth. Or maybe it’s just a case of the concept becoming more familiar to me.
I’m excited for the birth process. I’m excited to find out what I’m going to want to do, about what’s going to work in the moment to make the experience go as smoothly as possible, about how I’m going to cope. Of course I’m excited about the end result. But I’m excited about this new kind of challenge that is approaching, and finding tools to prepare myself for it.
All that being said, as much as I find reading about the birth process reassuring and inspiring, the mention of an episiotomy still makes me think of that scene in House Of Wax where that guy gets his Achilles tendon snipped. I don’t know why. It’s not really the same at all. It’s probably just because that scene made me recoil in horror more than most horror movie moments do. Blargh.