How Surviving Glastonbury Prepared Me For Motherhood
We’re all going to be missing Glastonbury this year.
There are hundreds of music festivals in the UK, but the daddy of them all has got to be Glastonbury with more than 100,000 people rocking up each June. I’ve been a couple of times, but in June 2014 my first son was born during Glastonbury week (no, not there – I’m not crazy!).
In the insomniac few days after his birth, it struck me that going to Glasto was great preparation for childbirth in many ways (DON’T READ ON, IF SQUEAMISH).
- You never know, when you sign up, exactly what to expect.
You hope for Prince, but get the Rolling Stones. Hope for an easy pregnancy, get extreme morning sickness, stretch marks and piles.
- It can be a mind-altering experience.
I enjoyed my gas and air, although I haven’t sampled any festival chemicals – but even the natural high of the adrenaline and oxytocin flooding your system can make you go slightly euphoric. I remember laughing with the midwife as I got my stitches, and telling her I loved her.
- It brings out your inner hippie.
At any other time I’m probably a bit of a sceptic but pregnancy saw me embracing shiatsu massage, reflexology, yogic breathing, hypnotherapy, group therapy, natural fibres, vitamins and relaxation techniques with evangelistic enthusiasm – ‘ujai breathing’ anyone? At Glasto I found myself wandering the healing fields looking for a reiki session and considering signing up for a handfasting wedding ceremony.
- Your bodily excretions become fascinating to you.
Festival toilets are legend, and by the end of Glasto I had a firm (ho ho!) preference for the composting toilets topped with a handful of sawdust over the stinky chemical toilets. Timing my visits I got down to a fine art. The things that came out of my body after the birth were so epic that they deserve their own place in the family photo album, and I felt compelled to report on them in graphic detail to my loved ones. Sorry mum!
- You learn to survive with very little sleep.
Once you go into labour, you may not sleep for more than an hour or two at a time for several days. Even though I had a short labour, it began at 9pm – so I was awake all day and most of the night – then once the baby was born in the early morning, I had another day to get through. Then the first night at home, when you are in shock, and then some kind of adrenalin kicked in that meant I was so buzzing I couldn’t fall asleep at all. At Glastonbury there is so much going on, plus you are attempting to sleep with the noise of a rave in the background or with sun streaming through your tent, or in a puddle. In the end you just resign yourself to no sleep and catch up on kip at the services on the way home.
- You spend a lot of time planning what you are going to listen to, and then it all goes out the window.
I had a carefully planned birth playlist, including my favourite ‘choons’ and a number of hypnobirthing tracks to keep me focussed in my ‘bubble of peace’ (don’t ask). In the end the early stages were experienced to the sound of Honduras vs Switzerland in the world cup, and the latter stages in silence. There was no point at which I was interested in getting out the ipod. At Glastonbury, I had a massive list of must-sees, but in the end a Ghanaian hip-hop act in the Green Fields was one of my random highlights.
- You pack a ton of stuff.
We tried to pack light for hospital, but there’s a ton of stuff that everyone needs that they don’t supply. Blankets, pillows, dressing gown, changes of clothes for all three of us, towels. And just like Glastonbury, lots and lots of snacks!
- You worry about how to travel and when to leave?
Should you drive or take public transport? Maybe you can get someone to give you a lift? You don’t want to go too early, or too late…all first-time parents having a non-home birth agonise over leaving too soon and their baby being born on the dual carriageway. All Glastonbury goers agonise over whether to leave during the Pyramid Stage headliner or wait until Monday morning and risk getting stuck in the traffic on the bypass – and both groups discuss it endlessly.
- Bonding quickly with strangers.
Like your midwife, 80% of women in the hospital I have a staff member they have never met before attend them at the birth. I saw three different doctors, three sonographers, and five midwives. A bit like the fleeting but intimate friendships you make with the camper in the next tent or the raver in Shangri La with you.
I haven’t been brave enough to go back to Glastonbury with my two little sidekicks (yet), but maybe 2021 will be my year?!