Thursday, October 18, 2007

All I Really Need to Know About Labour I Learned in Theatre School [MBT]

OK, so I've been doing a lot of reading lately about labour. With the Big Day coming up next month, I figured it was about time I got down to business. After all, this may be my second child, but since I had the Dreaded C last time, I didn't actually go through the whole labour experience. More importantly, I feel the need to arm myself with information, as doctors in these here parts ostensibly support VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarian), while simultaneously jumping ship whenever something doesn't go exactly according to plan.

I've checked out Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, as well as doing some reading online. While I found all this research helpful, I eventually came to the conclusion that all these suggestions for making labour easier and handling pain naturally sounded...well, familiar. What it took me FAR too long to realize is that all these techniques were things that I had learnt in my four years of Theatre School. Only, we were learning these things to be more "connected actors".

Some days I felt that these techniques we learnt were so amazing, and life-altering. But being the cynical youth that I was, other days I would just look around at the class moaning and drooling on the floor for an hour, and thought they were kind of, well, silly. I would question the process, and feel badly about wasting my parents' money. After reading these childbirth books, I feel that I am finally vindicated, and can prove to my parents that the money they spent on my theatrical education was not in vain.

Read more at Mommy Blogs Toronto.

4 comments:

Kat said...

3 things about me:
1- I think I might love Halloween even more than my boys do, if that is even possible.
2- Even though I am looking forward to a time when my boys are a little older and I can go back to school, and get back into theater, I am also dreading the thought of my boys getting older. :(
3- After almost 4 weeks my bathroom remodel project is STILL not done. GRRR

Kat said...

Um, hmmm. I think I published your comment on another site, and this wrong comment on your site. You can go ahead and delete that. Sorry!

What I meant to say was, try to keep an open mind about whatever happens during labor. If you need drugs, take them. If you want to scream your head off, do it. It doesn't always go according to plan, but as long as you and baby are healthy, that is all that matters.

bren j. said...

Aha! You're tagged!

Kelly said...

Brilliant! Here's hoping your theatre background proves entirely helpful during the labor process. (Process...doesn't really seem the appropriate word for something so un-process-like.)