Excerpt from Lessons of Labor: Thinking in Circles
Thinking in Circles In the background, a mix CD played on repeat throughout my five hours of labor at the hospital. My husband and I had burned this CD together and had included a track of soothing ocean sounds between every other song. Three hours into this repeated ocean soundtrack, I wanted the CD to be thrown out the window or at least turned off. I was desperate to be rid of those manufactured waves, but I could not speak out loud to ask my husband or doula for help. Never before had I felt such an odd separation between my mind and body. My thoughts continued in their ranting (I wish they would turn off that CD!), and yet I could not get the words out of my mouth. All of my bodily functions, including speech, were overtaken completely by the involuntary contractions of my uterus—and my uterus was doing its job whether or not the sounds of the ocean were soothing my mind. When I could let the music be background instead of foreground, my irritation would recede. I...