Strong thoughts South!

my friend Jill is currently in labour. she blogged from her hospital bed (much appreciated). so far everything sounds like it's going smoothly... i hope it stays that way! i think only 1 out of every 10 moms i know had an uncomplicated labour/delivery. so far, sounds like she may be one of the lucky ones. ah, who am i kidding, complicated or not, we're all lucky for going through the experience!

after childbirth, it seems that everything in my life had to be measured against it. which is great. whenever i came against something that seemed difficult, my brain would remind me 'you gave birth to two children, this is nothing'. and it would work. i never, ever could have imagined how much hard work and inner (and outer!) strength that childbirth would require. i was not great at it with cohen. partially due to the induction (from 0-10 on the pain scale in an hour, and the 10 lasted for 12 more hours, no relief), but partially because i just didn't think i could do it. i kept saying 'i can't do this anymore, i can't, i can't'. nature, luckily, doesn't care much about whether i think i can or not; cohen was born regardless of my lack of faith. but with lili, i already knew i could do it. and that made it so much easier.

this time around, i just hope that i don't forget what i'm doing. yeah, like i could every forget that 10/10 pain, the waves of pain rolling in one right after another with no relief (epidural's and i don't get along well. 1st one didn't take, 2nd one caused me to almost scratch my face off and then wore off long before pushing started). i am hoping to keep focused on reaching the pushing stage, because that's when i remember feeling like i was finally making progress.

anyways. labour, jeez, 26 weeks away most likely, for me. for Jill, i suspect she will be having a long night... i'm sure she's in for an amazing experience, with twists and turns and tears and joy.

happy almost-birthday Baby C!