Monday, August 28, 2006

Freak Out

So last night I freaked out around bed time. We had just watched two episodes of the 4th season of "Coupling". Adi noted that we didn't laugh as much but the content is more relevant to us. Rather than dating, the main couple is now attending birthing classes. We could identify. But it also made me freak out.

In the episode, the birth class members are divided into discussion groups by gender and asked to discuss attitudes towards pain relief. The men unanamously decide in favor of maximum DRUGS. While the women's views are more varied. I find myself siding with the men. Why suffer if you can safely reduce suffering? True there's the issue of the big needle in your back. And that in general drugs are best avoided if you don't need them.

For me the discussion is largely academic, since as far as we know now, I'm looking at a scheduled C-section. [Why? because I have myomas just below my cervix. They are thank God not bothering Cholent now but if I draw you a picture even a two-year old could see that they could get in the way of the exit.] I can expect the pain to be greatest after the actual birth. Hopefully by then I will be so excited to have Cholent that I will be able to deal. In any case I won't have much choice.

But then I started thinking: what if the myomas shrink and I don't need the C-section? What if I go into labor early? In that case it is less the pain I fear than the fact that the whole thing just seems so, well, UNLIKELY.

Despite abundant living evidence to the contrary, it seems amazing that any mother or child could survive such an ordeal.

All I wanted Adi to say was "It will all be OK.". He did say that but he also teased me about scheduling the operation on a day when he does not have any classes!

So then I started freaking out about afterwards, about fighting the hospital staff to breast feed, about making sure I have "biyut maleh" meaning full in room something. I forget how we call it in English. The term the birth class teacher was very British anyway so it was unfamiliar. It means that I am totally allowed to have the baby with me all the time rather than in the room with all her screaming peers. More better! But people will try to talk me out of it, saying that I need to rest and so on. I will have to have Adi and my family help me. I want her close. Close!

[post got cut off, I'll try to finish later]

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