When people ask me whether I will be giving birth naturally, I give them a look as if to say ARE YOU CRAZY and politely say no, I will definitely be having an epidural.  The idea of a natural childbirth was never an option for me.  I’m a big fat wuss and can’t bear the thought of that much pain.  My friend Sonia recommended a bunch of books for me to read, including two on natural childbirth.  I bought all of them.  Except for the two on natural childbirth.  

Then I had what Oprah refers to as a lightbulb moment.  I was on the plane to Paris reading a book about the development of a brain’s baby and read the following sentence:

In general women today are quite careful about what they put in their bodies during pregnancy, so it can seem a little odd that many lose caution on the last day of gestation, just when the baby is making the difficult transition to surviving on his own and will no longer have the benefit of his mother’s circulation to clear drugs out of his system.

I put the book down and gave it a little bit more thought. I turned to John and said (quite incredulously), I think I need to give natural childbirth a bit more consideration.

I’m not committing to it. But I ordered those two books. And when people ask me whether I will be giving birth naturally, my answer will now be “I hope so”.

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