You got pregnant! Yay! You made it to the end of your pregnancy! Yay! Now it's time to deal with labor. Yikes! Yup, it's called labor for a reason because it's not easy even when it is as easy as it can be. It can be particularly scary for first time moms because you don't know what to expect, but there are definitely things you can do beforehand to help you deal with the stress of labor so you can totally rock your first birth.
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Here are five labor tips for first time mamis:
1. Take a class. No, seriously do it. I signed up for a free labor and delivery class at the hospital where I was going to have my baby and it helped so much. I got answers to my questions and benefited from the questions asked by others.
2. Talk to your doctor about your fears. I was afraid of getting an episiotomy. It's when the doctor cuts you down there to supposedly help the baby come out easier. I did NOT want one. Like, I really did NOT want one. I must have talked to my doctor about it at least 10 times and told her to write it down that I did not want one. I may have even considered getting, "I do not want an episiotomy" tattooed on my hooha. I brought it up again right before I started pushing. Facing my fear and voicing it made me feel confident that what I wanted would be respected.
3. Have someone to run interference. This could be a doula or your partner or someone who is going to be in the labor room with you that you trust very much. Tell them all your dos and don'ts ahead of time, that way when your mother tries to bring in the mariachi band that she hired to play while you give birth, you can have your designated person put a stop to it. If your mother tries to argue with you, you just point to your designated person and say, "What they say goes! I'm busy."
4. Be flexible. Yes do prenatal yoga for flexibility and because it will help you deliver the baby more easily, but practice flexibility in general. You will have a birth plan and an idea of how you want things to go, but that is a best case scenario and you will find yourself having to deviate from the plan, that's okay. Flexibility will serve you well as a parent too.
5. Ask for help. Of course it's up to you to do the pushing, but if you need something, speak up and ask for it. I was induced during my first pregnancy and all of a sudden the pain kicked into high gear like nothing I imagined. There was no break between the pain and more pain. At one point I needed help that my husband could not provide, a nurse that I had never met stepped up, helped me through the pain and stayed with me until I got the epidural, she even held me during the epidural because I was in so much pain I didn't think I could sit still. She did it because she asked me if I was okay and I told her the truth. I told her I needed help and she gave it to me. If I would have said I was okay, she would have left me to my own devices and I would have continued to call my husband horrible names I didn't even know I knew.
Good luck and good labor!
Image via Thinkstock
