Sleeping During Giving Birth?

Posted on by under Life

Have you ever imagined or tried to image how it would have been if you would have slept while giving birth? Erika Kind and I just had a little exchange about it triggered by my Grizzly Bear post.

For those of you who have not read the post: A Grizzly mom gives birth while she’s asleep. That of course led Erika and myself to the thought what would have been, if we would have been able to sleep through the process…

What would have been? Let’s just have a little look at both sides:

The pros:

  • Most probably time would have gone by much faster.
  • Most probably I would have not felt the pain.
  • I would have not worried.

And there I am, already running out of pros…

The cons:

  • I might have woken up in the middle of a contraption…
  • I would have not worked hard for my kids.
  • I would have missed out on the support of my husband…
  • I would have missed out on nice conversations with him (whenever I had a breather…)
  • I would have not realized what I’m capable of doing…
  • I would have no way to understand what my body is capable of doing…
  • I would not have realized that time is relative…
  • I would have missed out on feeling the pain of giving birth and the release when it’s finally done…
  • I would have missed out on the joy of suddenly realizing that the baby is here finally…
  • I might have not heard their first sounds…
  • I might have not smelled their new skin…
  • I might have not felt their slimy body…
  • I might have not seen the joy, fear, pride, happiness, love in my husbands eyes…
  • I might have not felt the pride, love, happiness, fear, joy and exhaustion…
  • I would have not realized that you wouldn’t feel the pain any longer due to the adrenaline rush…
  • I would have not felt the love and bonding when my baby finally was in my arms…

You know what??? I would have missed out on too many things! As tempting as it seems in the first place when reading that sleeping through the process of giving birth is actually a thing, I’m sure glad I didn’t.

I’m sure momma bear bonds with her cups just as much as we do with our kids. Sleeping through birth is normal for her. The bonding happens differently, the challenges are different too.

Sometimes things seem tempting because they are not ours. If we look at it a little bit closer we might realize what we would miss out on if we could actually swap. Sometimes we are so focused on what we see and want to see that we tend to forget that there might be more to it. That there usually is more to it.

And again it’s all about looking at things in the bigger scheme…

 

 

29 thoughts on “Sleeping During Giving Birth?”

  2. It is amazing what you wrote! Lots of your cons came to my mind too after we talked about it. What asked me the most is, what about the cups? How do they survive when mom is taking her extended nap? Hey, cool you got back to that topic!

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  4. I er… slept through three of my kids’ birth via C-section. ^_^ One was an emergency C-section because my son was in distress. The second I was actually awake for most of it, but had to have a C-section because I was nine months pregnant with kidney stones (I woke up with pneumonia and never really recovered the full use of my lungs), and after two C-sections they just don’t allow you go give birth naturally. So, she was a planned C-section, and for the record, I did wake up in the middle of it. I remember that distinctly. It was pretty scary actually.

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  7. When you word it like that, I’m glad DW wasn’t asleep when she gave birth those two times. It would have been weird with her asleep and me standing there watching the baby come out. Great cons that make us go hmmm…

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  9. Frankly, I think I liked the entire grizzly bear child raising process and schedule. Guess that’s because it is similar to my personal philosophy of trying to teach kids to be independent but at the same time enforcing the thought that their parents will be there to support them if they fail, if only to a point! I like to give them enough rope (independence) to hang themselves but to be close enough to lift them out of it before they suffocate.
    I also remember distinctly when I gave birth to my second child who entered the world at 2:13 AM. When asked at that time if I wanted her to room with me in the hospital, my immediate response was “No, she’ll be with me every day for the rest of her life.” That statement was probably an exaggeration that was based on my extant sleep deprivation since of course at that moment all I wanted to do was sleep. Therefore, I vote for sleeping through childbirth.

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  10. I was awake for #1 until they realized he was in extreme distress. Then they put me out so they didn’t have to deal with me too. I didn’t see or hold him for 10 days. The nurses had that privilege. I was so sad to miss it but he turned out to be in very capable hands. My last, #2 was born in 2 hours while I was put out and prepared for a tubal ligation immediately after her birth. It was only several hours before they brought her to me but I so missed that immediate bonding with both of them. We didn’t know about a lot of the bonding issues back then. At least the way I was raised left the subject unavailable. I didn’t mind the pain or discomfort of childbirth. I did sadly miss the bonding experience. At least we have great relationships now in spite of the start.

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