Hi, I also am enjoying this discussion. Pinky, you asked me if I co-slept with my parents, and, no, I didn't, but I was always welcomed into their bed for a cuddle anytime, as was my husband with his mum and dad.
I guess that childhood experience probably imprinted the safe comfortable bed-place on me as a child. Why my husband and I decided to cosleep was nothing that we'd talked about, but an instant decision made after a wonderful homebirth. Tucking into our own freshly made bed with our firstborn after a torrid 18 hour labour, was the greatest joy I can remember to this day. And I guess there may start another thread to this discussion. Motherhood and parenting, as we all know can be and is, difficult. Some would say is not instinctual but has to be learnt. Well, I was wanting to be sterilised at 19 - kids?? no way, not for me!! I was the least maternal person I'd ever met! And yet somehow, for some divine reason, I chose to birth my first baby (and subsequent 3) at home, surrounded by those I loved and those who loved me. Within a few hours of my first baby arriving into my arms, this amazing feline-type enormous love feeling enveloped me, and is still with me to this day. There is nothing I would or could not do for my children. If you read people like Michel Odent or Sarah Buckley, Leilah McCraken (sp?), there is a lot of literature and interest these days in what exactly is released with uninterfered with birthing; hormones. cortico development (of baby - maybe me too?), etc. I certainly know how it felt, and I would say that some deeply-held intuitive parenting knowledge basically burst forth through me. I did not struggle with co-sleeping nor breastfeeding nor immunisation issues nor schooling. I have always felt that I have known what's best for each of my brood (and it wasn't always the same.). I'm not saying that it was all easy, but I can say that I had no direct role model, no precedence, no overbearing hubby or parents. I simply just did. And maybe that's why I've devoted all those years since my first birth to assisting other women and their families achieve normal, uninterfered births, coming up to 24 years. I am also therefore constantly around couples with disempowering birth experiences, and am totally convinced that birth remains one of the most potentially empowering or disempowering experiences anyone can have in their lifetime. I'm still with my partner after nearly 30 years (31st March!) and I'm 48 soon, but as a couple we are both intensely proud of our kids and also of ourselves as parents. That parental instinct was certainly 'born' with our first great homebirth, and no doubt added to with each of the other three. A passionate normal birth advocate! Sue -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
