I prepared as much as I could this time around.
I prepared for the pain...
After hearing of the success my friend Teddi had using Hypnobabies with her daughter's birth, about which she said she "wouldn't exactly describe it as pain", I decided I would use it too. I ordered the home study course and jumped in. Sadly, the course is a smidge on the highly-ambitious side for mothers of small children. There is a daily, 40-minute practice of self hypnosis using provided audio tracks, there are 5 daily, 5-minute solo practices, and there are 20-minute sessions every other day with a script your spouse reads to you. On top of all those, there is a 40-minute track of affirmations to listen to daily (which, by the way, is an AMAZING tool for putting toddlers to sleep), plus a large packet of materials to read, plus time you're supposed to spend doing visualizations and such.
Sorry. That's just not feasible for the mother of a toddler. We even hired a friend to come over and hang with our son a few times so I could do more of the practices. On a couple of good days, I doubled up on practice, but I never did more than a handful of the 5-minute sessions. Too bad. I think those were maybe the most important. For the 40-minute sessions I had to be alone, uninterrupted, and laying down, or it didn't work for me. And even then it often didn't work. So I shrugged and decided to just listen to the tracks at night while I slept and not beat myself up over it.
Turns out, the Hypnobabies was a huge help with my pregnancy. Within a few days of regularly listening to the tracks in my sleep, my severe anxiety that had plagued me daily (through both my pregnancies) disappeared! And it was truly severe. I had been begging and pleading with doctors for weeks for help. My DO suggested herbs and homeopathic remedies, an OB I saw twice wanted to put me on some heavy anxiety drugs, and I was so desperate, I was actually considering it, but thanks to the Hypnobabies, I ended up not having to! The anxiety I had been bawling about simply melted away. AMAZING!
I prepared for the baby...
I shopped my butt off a little this time. I bought a bunch of organic clothes even though we've got baby clothes coming out of our ears from Regin's old stash which is still in perfect condition. We got a new organic mattress, new wool carpet, and my dad built us a bed big enough to accommodate four people. I knit for the baby, I reread (skimmed) some baby care books, I set up our changing station.
I prepared our older son...
I read him story books about home birth and having a baby in the house. I tried to get him interested and excited about the idea, but didn't push it. I talked to him about the baby in Mamma's tummy, and he talked to me about the baby in his.
I prepared our house...
George, my mom, and I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. My mom has been laughing at me ever since for making George get on his hands and knees and scrub the floor molding, while I was up to my elbows in the fireplace trying to get rid of 9 years of dust. And we (we hope) rid our house of mold (and I stopped getting sick all the time, YAY!), and we installed a house humidifier (ahhhhh...).
I planned for the midwives...
I made arrangements for my sister to come for the birth to: make sure things went smoothly in the house, see that I and the birth attendants would be fed (including weird foods for my food issues), and ensure Regin was properly entertained and occupied or removed, if need be.
I made my desires clear...
I wanted to be alone in our room with George as much as possible and I wanted no excess people in the house, which sadly included our mothers for me this time around. During all the preparations, I had a third-trimester midwife reshuffle which was emotionally difficult to go through and I even considered unassisted birth because of how strong my instinct was to birth alone. Further, I told myself repeatedly that this time I wanted labor to start in the morning after a full night of restful sleep. (Can we please make sure that happens?)
I'm sure all the prep was excessive and unnecessary, but I think in some way I was trying to feel like I was doing what I could to gain a feeling of control and readiness after the loss of control and the unpreparedness I'd felt last time.
To be continued.
Part 3 -- The birth, coming tomorrow...
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