Hypnotize Me
So I’ve started thinking about HypnoBirthing, which was one of the strategies suggested by the midwife this week to help relax me now as much as when the time comes.
(Hysterically funny digression about telling me, the original walking ball of stress, that my blood pressure might hurt my baby, so I really need to relax. You have got to love that catch-22...all of these really bad things can happen, and I need you to really not think about them, even as you rearrange your life around your medical schedule, because thinking about them probably makes them more likely, since thinking about them should raise your blood pressure, so just relax, m’kay, and everything may or may not be all right...we’ll let you know as soon as we do, if we’re ever sure. Hmmm...I was intending to say digression omitted, but I went right on ahead with it, didn’t I? I hate it when I do that.)
It’s not that I’m a total non-believer when it comes to this mind-over-matter stuff. After all, I did once run until I literally could not walk in a weeks-long Drill Instructor inspired bout of fervor. (For those of you who don’t know the story, that injury led to my discharge from the Navy and is, as far as I know, the reason my legs were swollen before I ever became pregnant just like they have been for the last 3 years, which is making things interesting now and will make things far more interesting, I’m sure, in the weeks to come, especially as my pain level ratchets upward under the stress of the extra weight and the shift in how it’s arranged. One of the reasons that I am so in love with my primary doc is that when I told him that I still had pain sometimes, he said that he’d expect so, instead of looking at me like I was crazy. He’s also got good hair, which doesn’t hurt.)
Where was I?
It’s not that I’m a total non-believer in this mind-over-matter stuff, it’s that it tends to smell like hippie. It seems that any time I encounter information about natural childbirth, it comes with crunchy-granola baggage that I’m just not interested in. Why, oh why, is there some sort of assumption that if you’re open to the idea of not using drugs during birth that you also think cloth diapers are morally superior and that bottlefeeding moms are abusers?
Anyway, from what I’ve seen so far poking around online, I’m starting to see why she would have recommended it, and soon, as a way of looking at things that might be useful for my particular personality malfunctions. It also seems to lack the proudly braided toe-hair that sometimes hangs out of natural childbirth’s Birkenstocks. It certainly merits further investigation. I’ll keep y’all updated on what I find out.
Next entry: Update.
Previous entry: Kitten alert.