A Secret

Shh. I have a secret to tell you. My biggest fear of birth right now is that I won't know I'm in labor. I'm afraid I'll be one of those ditzes you hear about on the news who gave birth on the toilet at work because she didn't realize she was in labor. (Though these women usually don't know they were pregnant either.) I want a natural birth yes, but not a home birth quite yet. I guess that's better than being afraid it will hurt. Though according to my Hypno class, it may be uncomfortable but it isn't supposed to hurt. (Also as part of my Hypno class, I am not allowed to listen to any horror stories, so please don't tell me how wrong I am or how awful it was. I'll delete the comment.) Personally, this philosophy makes sense to me. Growing up with my parents running a kennel, I saw plenty of dogs give birth and they never seemed in pain to me. Uncomfortable, yes. But never in the kind of pain that most women experience. Animals are able to birth without pain, so why not us?
According to my class, the pain that women feel is real, but it is brought about by a cycle of Fear, which leads to tension, which leads to pain, which leads to more fear. When your body is relaxed, it does what it was made to do. I don't buy into the "labor hurts because Eve ate the fruit" theory. We were created to produce children. Why would the Lord punish us by making it extremely difficult and painful? So anyway, don't try and scare me about how much it's going to hurt. Just laugh at how silly my fears are. I'm not ruling out that I might decide I want an epidural, but the plan is for not. If you don't like it, tough. =)