Thoughts of labour

Day 22 of 'The Daily Post'.

When you’re in labour, your mind does odd things.

With my first, I remember thinking, with surprise, “Mrs McConnell is right. It IS just like doing a great big poo.” So much for all that talk of ‘bearing down’, and visualizing the petals of a flower gently opening.

I should explain. I had a friend and colleague called Holly McConnell. She hadn’t been through labour herself, but had quoted her mother’s pennyworth on the subject. I didn’t have the mental capacity to think this bit through when I was giving birth, but it later dawned on me that the woman in question wasn’t Mrs McConnell at all. That’s Holly’s married name. I had no idea what her maiden name was. But Mrs McConnell was good enough for me at the time, and if that bit of wisdom ever gets passed into formal theory for antenatal instruction, it should be called ‘the Mrs McConnell approach’ now for all time.

With my second and third labours, I followed the advice of a friend, and just kept my mind focused on the tea and toast that you are served once it’s all over. It tastes like no tea and toast has ever tasted before or since. It is the tea and toast to end all tea and toast. The anticipation of that tea and toast didn’t leave any mental space for odd stray thoughts, and of course by that time, I already knew that Mrs McConnell was right.

Did you have any random thoughts in labour? What’s your Mrs McConnell moment? Did the promise of tea and toast keep you going, or was it something else for you?

.