Surrender.
Surrender was the one word I chose to explain my birth experience when I attended a birth class a month later. I was the "experienced mom" talking to the women on their journey to their own home births. Cathy and Briana talked to these women and asked me questions. What was the one biggest lesson you learned?
Surrender.
Let go. Give in. Nature will win. Your body is designed to birth this baby, so trust it. Surrender to the pain, to the feelings, to the urges. Don't fight it. And once I did this, everything went so much faster. It got clearer and easier. And a baby was born.
Now with this new pregnancy, there have been so many good things, so smooth. And now we've found out there may be a hiccup. I may or may not get the home birth of my dreams. I may have to birth in a hospital. I may possibly have to have the dreaded Cesarean. I'm scared. I don't know how to handle this information. I've made this visual in my mind of what my birth would be, and a cold sterile hospital is not in that vision. I just... I'm so nervous to see how things come out.
And then I remembered. Surrender. Let go. Give in. Nature will win. And if my body needs assistance to birth this baby this time, that's ok. It's ok to let go of my preconceived notions of what this birth will be, and see where we end up. Surrender.
I'm scared. I can do this. I will fight for the best birth available for my baby. I will surrender when it's time to let go.
