Labour Part One

The class was. . . boring. Certainly not scary at all. The next class is also on labour, with more of a focus on pain relief options (which I already know fairly well). At present there are three things that concern me about labour:

1. It’s so far away (I actually came home and cried because of this).

2. I start labour from a position of weakness because of this stupid pregnancy. My cardiovascular health is rubbish, I’m unable to eat most vegetables, and I’ll be nauseous the whole time I’m in labour – bleaugh! It’s very likely that I’ll throw up at least once. Awesome.

3. It’s well established that fear/anxiety makes labour worse. This is not a nice thing to tell a person with an anxiety disorder.

But I did realise, with #3, that this is another place where seven years of anxiety is actually good training (much like my well-established ability to cope with the humiliation and boredom of not being able to work decent hours – it is much easier for me to deal with a reduction from 12 hours to 3 hours/week than a normal person who would have had to adjust to 3 hours/week after 35 hours/week).

There are very few people with as much practice at dealing with fear as yours truly. I may well have a labour experience that provokes the response of, “Was that it?” (at least in terms of fear/anxiety).

I tend to take a different emotional path than other people, so while grocery shopping is terrifying, labour is not – and it’s possible it never will be.

But, for the record, this is not a good time to find flaws in my logic. A mental placebo needs to remain sacred in order to work.

Here’s a shot of the calender from our bedroom. Each week is marked out, and the 18th (which marks the theoretical point at which I have two months to go).