The thought of giving birth has always terrified me—in fact, I have always had to mentally prepare myself for hours before a gyno appointment and reward myself afterward. But I assumed when I got married that I would have lots of time to think about ways to conquer my fear of pregnancy, especially because I figured my type-A personality would kick in and help me plan: first for when my husband and I wanted to start a family, and then for how to actually go about giving birth. But less than a year after our honeymoon, I was nine months pregnant without much of a plan at all.
In the early months of the pregnancy, I would check my Pregnancy Tracker app to see what was happening with our little burrito and my body. I tried reading the labor section of What to Expect, promptly burst into tears, and put the book in the back of my closet. About the time I could no longer look down and see my toes, my friend suggested I go to a prenatal yoga class. The class was centered around community: We sat in a circle facing each other the entire hour, went around doing a check-in, and sustained conversation the entire practice. The yoga teacher was also a doula and was a wealth of knowledge on all things pregnancy and birth.
Each week she had a topic of discussion for when our class conversation lulled. Each topic made it clear that I was traveling a different pregnancy journey than these ladies. The majority were planning home births, and I was going to a hospital; they were investing in cloth diapers, and I was stockpiling Target diaper coupons; they were afraid they would have to get an epidural, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get an epidural. The most glaring difference between us was that these women had been preparing for their births in various ways—they read books, they took classes, and they had a birth plan. I did none of that.
When it was my turn in the circle to talk about my birth plan, I boldly stated: I want an epidural and I want to give birth. When pressed, I was also able to articulate that I probably wouldn’t want to be induced, because it sounded horribly painful. After class, the doula-teacher tried to express to me the importance of having a plan—but I wasn’t having it. Despite my super rigid, type-A tendencies, this, of all times, was the time I decided to freestyle it. My inability to cope with whatever vagina-induced trauma I had built up throughout my life translated into an avoidance of the reality that I would in fact be giving birth sometime soon. I preferred to ignore it.
Looking back, I am thankful for that prenatal yoga class for many reasons. Most importantly, it led me to begin contemplating some semblance of a birth plan, even if I never solidly committed to one. But I did start to look into some things, namely what being induced actually meant and how to deal with it if it had to happen. There was more I could have done: I could have chosen music, taken hypnobirthing classes, repeated a mantra, or spritzed essential oils on my face when I felt like my experience was becoming more than I could handle. But I didn’t do any of those things. In fact, I mocked some of those things. And, when the time came, I grasped for anything I could, well aware that I was not mentally equipped to deal with my situation.
My birth ended up only following one part of my “plan”: I gave birth. I developed extremely high blood pressure and was induced a week before my due date. I knew that induction could slow down a labor, so I was able to plan to steady myself until I hit my desired level of dilation, and I made it through delivery. Luckily, I had my husband and my mom in the room and a team of nurses that were able to say things I needed to hear and support me in ways I needed, but when it was all over I found myself wishing I could have supported myself a little more. At the time, I felt justified in not having a plan. I felt as if I’d won some sort of argument with my yoga group—I couldn’t even execute a plan with just two stipulations. I realized later that the women in that circle didn’t have birth plans for how everything was going to be, but they had hopes for how it should go and back-ups for when their births were no longer going the way they planned. Instead of planning for a perfect birth, they were planning for when things would inevitably go awry.
There were many aspects of my birth that I was not prepared for that I wish I had planned for better—or, you know, at all. For instance, I wish I had prepared myself for coping with the emotional aspect of giving birth. Although pushing a human being out of my vagina was about as pleasant as I had anticipated, what I wasn’t ready to deal with—what I refused to deal with—was the emotional stickiness surrounding my panic. If I couldn’t make it through a gynecological exam, if I couldn’t make it through months of nurses and doctors, why did I think I would be able to endure hours of birthing without some sort of plan to manage my emotional state? If I give birth again, I already know where I need to begin.
Months later, I was able to reconnect with many of those mamas in a “baby and me” yoga class with the same yoga teacher. We each came into the circle with our own birth baggage—the things that didn’t go according to plan, the things that did, the unexpected, and the beautiful. It became clear that despite this, most of the women in the circle had been able to weather their births, no matter how difficult or unexpected, at a level that I could not. After all, it’s easier to stock up on information and strategies and then adjust the course than it is to show up without a map.