Still waiting after all these months...

The final weeks of pregnancy are doing something strange to my mind. I am so completely ready to have this baby. I have had visions of bouncing up and down on a pogo stick, going jeeping on off country roads (bouncy ones), and doing just about anything else you can think of to have this kiddo NOW!! (Okay, not anything, but anything healthy and natural.)

Of course, as a serious type A personality and a proponent of natural childbirth, I have been reading several different books on the biology of birth and the history of birth. I have learned that many of the medical techniques used by doctors for the past several hundred years were started not because they were the best thing for the woman or baby, but because they were best for someone else. (Color me unsurprised) The result of all this education? I have come to see my husband as a potential source of labor induction.

Bring on those prostaglandins baby!! (Note: This is not an effective pick up line, though it did make him laugh.)

All joking aside, despite our culture's reservations about tying anything sexual to the process of birth, women who enjoy an active sex life during pregnancy are more likely to birth close to their due date, instead of going over. (My due date is soon... please god may I birth close to my due date.) This is in part due to the oxytocin released by nipple stimulation, which helps encourage labor, and is also in part due to the introduction of prostaglandins from the semen, which help the cervix soften and efface. Human semen is the most concentrated source of prostaglandins, which is the labor inducing substance synthetically reproduced in Cytotec. However, unlike Cytotec, Human prostaglandins do not contribute to hyperstimulation of the uterus, hemorraging, and at times, death. (Now that's fun!)

Oh honey... -eyebrow wiggle- What's a handsome prostaglandin producing man like you doing in a place like this?

Yes, even the largest, most pregnant woman in the world (today that would be me) can drum up a semblance of sexual desire, if it means her term of months may come to an end sooner rather than later. Of course, there are other benefits to natural labor induction, such as sex, so it's not as though it is a trivail to try this natural method of birth encouragement. After all, it's what got us here in the first place isn't it?

Hmmm.... sex AND natural labor induction without the risk of pain or death?? What a quaint notion. Hey honey... let's go light some candles.