I am still here! (given up having uniform blog titles)

Phew its been a few days since I was here and I cant believe how busy I have been. In an earlier post I revealed that I was a little more than a bit lost in life and wondering where the next turn would be and how I would go about making it. Well apparently a little insomnia, a little girls birthday and a whole lot of crazy thoughts turned into something new and I have been working hard to get it up and running. I hope that it turns out to be a successful venture, not even in the monetary sense, even though that would be lovely too, but just in the "loved" sense of the word. I love what I am doing so I hope to share in that. So seeing as I have been working on the birth of a new venture I thought I might reflect on the birth of my children in this blog post.

I could go into the gory details of over due dates, inducing, nasty nurses, unsuccessful breast feeding, late nights and early mornings ....but I wont. I thought rather than telling you word for word about each birth of my children I would instead tell you about how I FEEL about the births and how I feel about how others react to my birth stories.

I have been very lucky to be blessed with 3 happy and healthy children, not without my losses, but that's another post altogether really.

When you have a child, or a few as in my case you find yourself at things like playgroup, mothers meetings, or just in general being drawn to people with children. I suppose its because with three very noisy children running around and climbing the walls no sane person without children would want to be in 100 meters of you. :)

While socialising with all these other mothers its very hard for the "birth story" conversation NOT to start up. Its like bragging rights isn't it... ...............I had a 10 pounder, I was in labour for 48 hrs, I gave birth in the back of the car...etc etc etc. ............

Well my stories aren't dramatic, no back seat of the car type stories anyway. I had three healthy babies via caesarian.

"Awww you poor thing" I hear some people say "You missed out on a real birth" others say " That must be so disappointing" ...and without the comments, the looks that some ladies give me without realising are even worse.

However I don't feel like a "poor thing"  I definitely didn't miss out on a real birth as I seem to remember bringing home three real babies and I have never once in the 8 1/2 years since my first caesarian, felt disappointed in any way.

When I was pregnant with my first child I chose not to have expectations about the birth of my child. I knew too many mothers that had gone in wanting it all to go one way and it went the other. I didn't want to be disappointed or upset by what had happened to me, so I chose to go into the situation with my eyes open and three very simple hopes.

1. I would get to hold my child.
2. My child would be as healthy as it could be.
3. I would be able to take my child home and start my family as soon as was possible.

I didn't tell myself I was going to give birth a certain way, or use or not use drugs. I was going to do everything in my power to ensure that my child had the best start to life that it could have and I was willing to do what ever I could to ensure this.

When the midwife told me that I was going in for an emergency Caesarean after two days of trying to get me into a good steady labour, and 7 hours of contractions that went no where, a huge part of me was relieved. I was so tired that I don't think I really cared what was going to happen next as long as I was going to be able to hold my baby that I was waiting for. I was a little scared, but then giving birth vaginally at the time seemed pretty darn scary too.

Now days I find myself reluctant to tell my birth story to people, as I find that more often than not I get a reaction I don't want. Which I of course know is never a reason not to tell something, but sometimes its just easier. I don't feel like I missed out on anything, for me giving birth is about having a baby, I had three. Giving birth is about the start of being a parent, I parent three. Giving birth is about the first step on the road of life as a family, and I am on that road.

I have never looked back and regretted what happened in my first birth, nor have I regretted the decisions with my second and third children to have subsequent caesarians. I did what was best for my children and what was best for my hubby and I. If I could go back to the day that my son was born I would do it all exactly the same, actually thats a little lie, I probably would have skipped the 7 hrs of labour that resulted in nothing! :)