Any Day Now ??

In a rare flurry of organization, I packed my Birth Bag this weekend. I'm not sure whether this was inspired by our attendance at the Birth Refresher course on Thursday, the rapidly looming due date, or the predictions of nearly every random stranger I meet that the baby will come early. I'm pretty sure these predictions are based on my rapidly looming belly!!

Anyway, packing the bag was a pretty straightforward exercise, except for the selection of musical accompaniment. Last time I didn't bother with music. This time, I'm thinking it can't hurt and might even help. Of course, if I was truly organised, I wouldn't need to bother selecting music in advance. I'd just pack my fully loaded and operational MP3 player and so have access to our full music collection. No such luck though - I actually need to choose some CDs. Anyway, Victoria (the midwife) has advised us that she is "sick to death of Enya". That's fine. There is no way in the world I would be giving birth to Enya. My current selection includes Sacred Spirit [a kind of combination of American Indian music, electronca, classical], Faure's requium, some Hildegard von Bingen, Oceania [polynesian], some Moby and Loreena McKennit. I suppose there is fair chance that I will never want to hear any of these items again afterwards...

Geoff's suggestion of the Ride of the Valkeries has been rejected out out hand, although maybe I should just take it along just so that I can make him listen to it out for 13 hours or something.

I was feeling a bit strange about taking a Requiem to a birth, but I feel reassured by the liner notes, which say "'It is as gentle as I am myself' wrote Faure,...Not for him classical models from Mozart to Cherubinin, nor anything histrionic as in Verdi...'My Requium expreses not so much the fear of death as the peacefulness of eternal rest'...". I guess if the music is not reassuring then I can always get Geoff to read our the liner notes over and over!

The "Non Pharmacological Pain Relief" handout supplied by the Birth Centre also suggests getting the support person (i.e. Geoff) to repeat simple words and phrases such as "Open, release, you're doing well, we're getting there". Sounds good. The suggestion to "Visualise your vagina opening like a flower" is less helpful. I'm sorry, but pushing a person out of my body just doesn't bring floral images to mind. Or it certainly didn't last time. Sorry if I just grossed you out.