I skipped antenatal "care" classes for this reason!

Hun you are going to get more and more pregnant and those wriggles and kicks you feel every day are going to become pounding feet and fists. The little baby inside is going to grow and grow until you are so big with it you feel you might be more baby than woman! And when you rub your big belly and feel those strong feet and hands you're going to know how STRONG your baby is, and how STRONG you are together.

Life gets uncomfortable. Sleeping gets harder. Your hugeness dominates your thoughts and actions, the baby looms large in your mind. The connection between you is strong and you will begin to long and long to feel those limbs wriggle in your arms, to look into the fresh eyes of your baby and say hello. You're going to want this so so much, and on the day you feel your first contraction the FIRST thing you will feel is excitement - your baby is coming, your time is now.

As each wave surges through you you will feel so many sensations and emotions. Yes, there will be pain. Not a pain you have imagined or thought of, a pain you have never encountered, and remember it well because it is the pain of womanhood, it is your gift to your baby and to yourself. I know, it takes a lot to wrap our western pain-medicated minds around the concept of a gift of pain, but it is just that. Ask yourself "WHAT do i feel?" I did that and it really helped, because yes, i felt pain, but not only pain. How was your first time at sex? Was there a pain, a tightness, and then a yielding and through the pain a suggestion of the pleasure that makes every living thing that does it do it? There are moments in labour when it hurts AND it feels good, but if you sit thinking "it hurts it hurts!" you might miss them. DON'T deny pain, but do ask what else you feel.

Make sure you're well-supported. Try to have an attendant who believes in you and in birth. Even my XP was surprisingly wonderful at this (it doesn't HAVE to be a doula). At some point i was hanging in desperation at the velocity of my labour over the edge of the bath shouting "i can't do it" and he looked at me very calmly and said "you ARE doing it."

Labour teaches us to live in the moment. Labour is only ONE contraction long - the contraction you're having. None of the others passed or coming matter, just the one you're having. Live in the moment. If you divide labour into contractions and breaks you get LOTS of rest, USE it. Relax between contractions and praise yourself for your progress. When you are holding your newborn you will really appreciate what labour taught you about living in the moment because they grow SO fast and you're going to want to DRINK every moment with them.

Ever since you were born you have been doing First Things. First breath, first cry, first poop, first feed, first smile, first solids, first step, first bikeride, first day at school, first relationship, i could go on. This is your first baby. You have risen to a million challenges in your life, and some of them you won't even have THOUGHT of as challenges, and you have succeeded. Your baby is inside you and birth is something you WILL do. Not can or can't. WILL. It's not going to be easy because things worth doing rarely are. It's going to be difficult and challenging and the most wonderful, worthwhile, joyous achievement of your life. Until you have your next one

Bx