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02/24/2015

Baby Samourai made-in-India – 4. Final preparations

IIndia, birth,water birth,pregnancy,baby,infant,newborn,delivery,midwife,swaddling,swaddle,diaper,breastfeeding,hospital,fertility,contraception,sterilization started my maternity leave a couple of weeks before due date. I had an exhaustive to-do list before becoming a parent: buy a decent fridge and washing machine (we already had the crib!), make peanut butter, finish watching Orange Is the New Black and treat myself with a haircut / manicure-pedicure. Because I thought I wouldn't have too much time to do it with the newborn and (it is very trivial and unlike me (put it on the hormones) but) I wanted to look decent on the photo where they put the baby on your chest. With the arrival of my parents and my mother-in-law, it took me a good full week to complete these operations...

 

I surprised my Indian relatives by going out alone (i.e. to have breakfast with a girlfriend) at D+1, then running the stairs up and down like a maniac at D+2. And I myself got my share of surprises, for example when my mother-in-law predicted me the delivery date indicated by the stars. Or when she told me that in Kerala, the new mother must spend the first ten days bedridden, to recover (cf Babies made-in-India - 3). At the end, I delivered in a complete astral chaos (or at least in the greatest contempt for astral predictions), and two days after I got back home, I was perched on a stool to reorganize the kitchen cupboards... Lets not see here any provocation ;)

 

(To be continued...)

02/22/2015

Baby Samourai made-in-India - 3. Choosing the delivery method

india,birth,water birth,pregnancy,baby,infant,newborn,delivery,midwife,swaddling,swaddle,diaper,breastfeeding,hospital,fertility,contraception,sterilizationPregnancy is fine but well, the time of giving birth did come at some point. Not that I was in a hurry but, as I read somewhere, we never saw a 24-month pregnant woman!

 

Determined to follow Mother Nature’s ways as much as possible (i.e. to avoid caesarean delivery), I let the British midwife to convince me to try to aquatic experience... She had nice arguments, like the relaxing effect of hot water which is a natural painkiller.

 

Them, to support her theory, she found nothing better than showing me, like that, completely out of the blue, a video of a water birth at home. It was very, very hard for me not to burst into tears. And not of emotion before this miracle of nature, no. Of terror. I am still traumatized by this video, and the image of the huge woman with huge boobs giving birth in her living room, with her eldest daughter, husband, mother, dog around.

 

Giving life to a child is supposedly the most beautiful thing in the world. But then why so much suffering huh?? The midwife, wanting to be reassuring, commented on the video: "you see, sometimes, she even smiles between two contractions”. Fantastic!

Well, anyway, this pain I couldn't start to imagine it, so I focused on a detail that may seem trivial: the heavy breasts of this mother. Already, being myself very reserved, I was really worried about having my parts exposed to the entire human race during childbirth. And I had started seriously considering delivering all alone in my bathroom when the midwife added, as if she had read my mind: 'don’t worry, you can keep a spaghetti top or a sports bra. And to close the deal with this argument: “water birth is definitely the most intimate way to deliver a baby, because you are all alone in your pool, nobody to stare between your legs". Sold!

 

A few weeks before the D-day, I went to the pool of a hotel to test the waters... I was indeed curious to see if it would have the desired effect: everyone recommended me immersion to get relief, to feel lighter. I did not feel any lighter when entering the water... On the other hand I did feel heavier when getting out of it! But anyway, since I had no problems with gravity, I decided to not renew this experience...

 

(To be continued...)

02/20/2015

Baby Samourai made-in-India – 2. A dream pregnancy

india,birth,water birth,pregnancy,baby,infant,newborn,delivery,midwife,swaddling,swaddle,diaper,breastfeeding,hospital,fertility,contraception,sterilizationThroughout my pregnancy, I almost managed to escape advice and tips and did only what I wanted to (with the support of the father obviously).

That's how we ended up in Laos, the poorest country in Asia, during the monsoon season, kayaking on the furious Mekong, or pedaling in the mud, when I was five months pregnant! When holidays got over and I got back to work, one of my colleagues almost forbade me to take the stairs, 'given my condition', which obviously made me laugh.

 

So, I got a dream pregnancy. A part from a horrible first trimester. And a part a few severe cramps, a small sciatic nerve that got stuck for three weeks at the end of the fifth month, my asshole who tried to get away in the eighth month (hemorrhoids man I tell you…), and my sphincters which once failed me for 24 hours (it’s scary)!

 

Here is what saved my life:

  1. A magic potion against nausea,

  2. A balanced diet (a juice or smoothie at 9 AM, a biscuit at 11, lunch at 1, protein-shake (my Gynec insisting heavily on it) at 4, a snack at 6, a soup and/or salad at 9),

  3. Sport (yoga, exercise ball, walks, sex (when you are lucky enough to have trooper hormones and that your new whale-type figure doesn’t repel your partner) - sex is even 'prescribed' to induce labour; as the doctor told my favorite Indian "you started it, now you finish it"!),

  4. A good deal of luck!!

 

(To be continued...)