Oh, boy... Childbirth

Women have been giving birth since the beginning of time. It is one of the most natural things in the world. I just finished reading a fabulous book - Lady's Hands, Lion's Heart by Carol Leonard - that I was lucky enough to have lent to me by a student. It's written by and about a Midwife and her experiences.

WARNING: The chick writing this has very strong opinions about childbirth. For her OWN kid. The same chick also believes every Mother is entitled to her own opinion, and has the right to decide how her own kids are born.

Now, don't say I didn't warn you!

When I got pregnant with my son, I was a lot of things all at once. Ecstatic, tearful, terrified, excited, shocked... you name it, I probably felt it. All in a 2 minute time span. He was planned - my husband and I tried for 8 months before the pee stick said "pregnant". But, from that moment, I started researching the best way for me to give birth.

I know this lady that has 9 kids. Yes, I said 9. At this point, they range in age from 21 to 3. No twins, all single births. And, for the most part, they were all born at home... 6 at home, 2 in a birthing center, and only 1 in an actual hospital. I had always thought it was fascinating, but now it wildly interested me. So, I started asking questions.

She answered whatever questions I asked, and encouraged me to do my own research. She pointed me in the right directions for some things, and others I found by myself. The more I read about things, the more I thought that, as long as I was having a normal, uneventful pregnancy, I would like to have my baby at home.

This is where some of you will freak out, and think that I'm backwards and not rational, and think, as I recently read, that I am selfish for wanting that. That it's for my comfort, having nothing to do with my unborn baby. This is also where I tell those people that you've got it wrong. And most of you must not be mothers. Because if you were mothers, you would understand that as soon as you become pregnant... as soon as that silly little stick you peed on tells you you are pregnant... it all changes. You, as an individual, have ceased to exist. Your entire existence is given over to this little life that you can't even feel, yet. You are in love like you've never been before. So, I tell you that anything I do - what I eat, how much I sleep - is all for the baby. My comfort is comforting to the baby. My stress stresses out the baby. All that is scientific fact. So... if Mommy is stressed out in a hospital for a birth, so is the baby, and that's a problem. The calmer Mom is for her labor, the smoother it progresses. On the flip side, of course, if a Mom is more comfortable in the perceived safety of a hospital, then that's where she should be.

I, however, have never had an overwhelming urge to camp out in a sterile, non-homey hospital. I am totally a home body - my house is my sanctuary from the craziness of life, and here is where I am most comfortable. As I got more and more pregnant (good GOD, I was big...), I really wanted to avoid a hospital. But I did have a major obstacle. My husband.

Tim was not nearly as enthusiastic about a home birth as I was, no matter how much our friend raved about the "rightness" of it. He's a little conservative, and I think, like a lot if first time Dads, he was concerned about me and my health and my ability to do this major thing that I've never done before. He didn't get why I was so sure it would all be fine. "You can't know that," he would tell me. But, as I didn't want a basket case of a husband around while I was giving birth, we agreed on a birthing center, as opposed to a hospital. A nice compromise, I thought. I still get to have a midwife and a "free-wheeling" birth, he gets the comfort of a decked-out-with-modern-equipment-to-handle-an-emergency facility.

Of course, right when we started looking for midwives and birthing centers, the closest one (which was already 45 minutes away) was getting ready to shut its doors. So heartbreaking, because birthing centers give such a valuable service, and they are so under appreciated. And now, they are falling under fire from our sue-happy society. Everything these days is someones fault. And someone else's fault, at that. OB-GYN's and family practices are having almost as severe problems with insurance. My family doctor at the time had stopped delivering babies because she couldn't afford the malpractice insurance for it, and she was very sad, because she thought delivering babies was one of the most joyous things she got to do.

So, my only options were in Alexandria, VA (the midwife practice my friend used, actually) and Annapolis, MD. Both of which were well over an hour from us, on a good day, with no traffic. And in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, no traffic is unheard of, I don't care what time it is. And, God forbid I go into labor during rush hour. I'd wind up having the baby in my car! Cute story later, maybe, but not the most desirable location.

So, turns out, there were no midwives and no birthing centers available to me. I was really pissed. I wanted to move. Well, maybe not. But, my ever-reliable husband talked me down off a cliff, and we wound up choosing a hospital with a brand new birthing wing that was about 1/2 an hour away.

We used The Bradley Method of child birth, which absolutely rocks. I can't say enough amazing things about it. People train for all sorts of things... marathons, tournaments, triathlons, competitions of all kinds. But I'm not sure that enough women really train to do the Labor Marathon. Lamaze, in my opinion, teaches you how to handle a hospital birth; i.e., how to hold out until you can get the epidural. NO WAY was I putting drugs of any sort in my system if I could avoid it. There is no way that you can tell me that although my kid will react to spicy or ethnic food that I eat right away, he won't be affected by drugs. Right. I don't think so. Studies have shown that babies born from births with epidurals are slower to nurse and aren't as alert in the first few hours. Of course they're not. They've been drugged, they're all peace and love, man! Hey, being born is hard enough, I think, without having to be stoned to boot.

So, The Bradley Method was 12 weeks of a 2.5 hour class once a week. We practiced. We breathed, meditated, and had our husbands try all sorts of relaxation techniques on us. You never know what will or wouldn't work. We practiced different positions to shift to in order to keep us as comfortable as possible, and the labor moving along. We role played. It was fabulous, and our instructor was an absolute gem. I felt incredibly prepared for my kiddo to arrive.

I was also incredibly glad to have a different perspective on birth form our Bradley instructor, Judy. All I kept hearing from my doctors was, "This is your first baby. Labor will take a while. 20 or so hours, probably." 20 hours?? Holy crap. Look, I know there are a lot of women who have labored for days. A friend of mine came in at 32 hours. But, not having done it before, and having the entire universe of mothers, it seemed like, telling me how much it hurt... well, 20 hours was definitely intimidating, even for not-very-easily-intimidated me. They also told me things like, "Oh, well the due date is give or take 2 weeks, but you're a first time Mom, so, most likely, yours will be give." Everyone was telling me my baby would be late, because I'm a first time Mom. I even found out that one of the doctors in the practice I wound up going to believed that first time Moms were incapable of delivering without an epidural. !!! Judy, however, said, "Don't listen to everyone. Your body and your baby will do what they're supposed to do. Could you have a 20 hour labor? Sure. But you'll be ready for it. Trained. Could the baby be late? Sure. Maybe he just needs a little more time to get ready. But maybe... he'll be right in time, or early, ready to take on the world. Maybe... your labor will be quick, just a few hours. Happens all time, really." Now, that sounded much more reasonable to me. So, I chilled out. I stopped listening to the endless amount of people who wanted to give me advice. And, trust me, Mom's come out of the woodwork to give you advice when you're pregnant!

I had a very uneventful - boring - pregnancy. No glitches at all. At 5am on September 3rd, 2004 - Labor Day weekend, of all times - my water broke. I woke up from my uncomfortable slumber thinking I had to pee. But, no. It was my son getting ready to come out.

Now, we figure I slept through the early part of Labor. The doctor said to call right away if my water broke, but there is really no danger in waiting a few hours to go to the hospital. So, I waited for contractions to start. I did, however, call my Mom in Miami - this was 2 weeks early. (Mental finger to the doctor.) And, of course, it was hurricane season, and yes, there was a hurricane headed to Miami. So, I thought that if my Mom still wanted to be with me, she'd better hop to. And off to the airport she went.

Next, I called my best friend (who's daughter is my gorgeous, highly intelligent, almost now 3-year-old Goddaughter) who was going to be in the birthing room with us. She asked me if I had called the doctor, yet. And yelled at me when I told her no. Buy this time, I was starting to feel some very mild contractions.... every 3-ish minutes. Oh, and the other criteria for calling the doctor? When the contractions are 5 minutes apart. Oops. Not my fault my kid skipped that part. At this point, it was about 5:15/5:20, so not much time had passed. Tim called the doc and told her the situation. She, of course, just like the movies, asked him how far apart the contractions were. And, just like the movies, he didn't know. :-) When I relayed "Ohhhh.... about 3 minutes or so" she scolded him for not calling earlier. He said that none of this was happening earlier, that my contractions started out this close. To which she told him to get my butt to the hospital.

I hated leaving home. I didn't want to get in the car - I was very uncomfortable by this time, and the contractions were really starting to hurt. In the half hour drive, I think I jumped right through the first 2 stages of Labor. I took my seat belt off half way there, much to my husband's chagrin, because I just couldn't have it touching my belly, anymore. When we got there, we had to go in through the ER entrance, because it was too early for the lobby to be open. The ditz at the counter didn't get that I was in labor. I don't know why. I was as big as a house, had to put my head on the counter three times while we were checking in to deal with a contraction, and I shot daggers at him with my eyes. But, he didn't seem to think I needed a wheelchair. I guess he thought I should walk the 400 miles to Labor & Delivery. Yeah, that was fun. I had to stop my waddling every 10 feet to have a contraction, because they were coming every 1.5-2 minutes, now.

When we finally made it to our room - which was as nice as a hospital can make it - the nurse came to check on me. The doctors, see, don't make an appearance until the baby is ready to pop out. They come in, they catch, they say "good job" and they go. As long as there are no complications, of course. So, if you want to see more of your doctor during labor, have complications. It's the nurses that help you through. Our first nurse, I would have had to kill if she had stayed. She came in, told me the doc wanted me to walk around to help move the labor along, and to "hang in there. This is your first baby. It's gonna be a while." Great. Another one. Well, pppfffllltttt!

She checked my dilation, and had the decency, at least, to look impressed when I was 3 centimeters. A couple of hours and my senses of humor and modesty later, I was at 5. By noon, I had only a tiny lip of my cervix left to open, and I was told to start pushing. At 1:04pm, a mere eight hours after my water broke, Connor Patrick was born. (Another mental finger to the doctor.)

I don't mean to gloss over my labor. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, easy. It was seriously hard work. I was tired, in pain, and wanted it to stop. Not once did I ask for drugs (this would be the final finger, as the doctor that delivered my son was the one who thought first time Mom's couldn't labor drug-free. HA!). I did, however, ask the nurse a few times how much longer it was going to take. She always deflected my question. Insert "B" word here. But, honestly, even though it was hard, it just was not a big deal. My friend with the 9 kids? She was there. What better coach than someone who's done it personally nine times? She said, and I quote, "That was a perfect Bradley birth." I was flattered. Would I change anything about it? Yeah, I'd have my kid at home. I was SO out of that hospital as soon as I could get through the bureaucracy. They didn't understand why I wanted to keep my son with me for as long as possible before we were separated (there is a window of opportunity, apparently, to administer the ointment to their eyes). They didn't understand why I didn't want him to be taken to the On Demand nursery (where the babies stay until ready to nurse) at all. They didn't understand why I didn't want to stay for 3 days ("You know your insurance pays for a 3 day hospital stay, don't you?"), that I just wanted to go home. It took me until the next day, but we were outta there.

Please don't get me wrong... the hospital staff (except for the first nurse!) was amazing. I loved, loved, LOVED the nurse we wound up with, Jackie. All in all, it would be considered a very positive experience. I just didn't like the environment. It wasn't home.

Had I had a complicated pregnancy, or my labor proved to be difficult, I would not have hesitated for a single second to go to a hospital. If I had been home, one concerned look from a midwife is all it would have taken to get my butt in the car. I'm not stupid. But I was upset that because uninformed people in this world chose to make life difficult for midwives and home births, that my decision in the matter was made for me. My husband promised me that if the first birth went smoothly, we can go for a home birth for the 2nd one. IF, that is, there are still midwives that are allowed to attend home births. And that, unfortunately, is looking less and less likely.

Do tragedies happen? Yes. Do babies and mothers die in childbirth? Yes. Is it the norm? Not by any means. When was the last time you heard about a baby dieing in a hospital on the national or world news? I don't think I ever have, unless it was a celebrity's baby. And, yet, go Google "midwife" and "home birth", and one of the first links that pops is about a midwife in England who transferred a birth to a hospital, and the baby died. And, of course, the media and the comments are blaming the midwife. Could it be her fault? Absolutely. Could the baby have perished had the entire birthing process been done in the hospital? YES. We'll never know. That's sad, absolutely tragic and life-changing for the parents, and true.

The point of this blog? Butt out. Support people's right to make their own decisions, no matter how dumb you think they might be. Do your research, don't just believe everything that you are told. Everything you read is NOT necessarily true. And, for God's sake, if there is a practice in this world you don't believe in... don't practice it. But don't make it so that other people can't do it, too. Christian Scientist women that are giving birth, to my understanding, are not allowed to make any noise. At all. Not a peep. Now, I don't agree with that - I don't know how they do it - but they have a right to try! That's why we live in America, people... we're supposed to have freedom of choice. Oh, and I have some strong political opinions, too, but we won't get into those today. :-D

If there is anyone reading this that is preggo... I encourage you to do your research. I would obviously encourage you to go drug free - it really is best for the baby. Home birth? Well, that's not something I would push people to do, because Mom has to be comfortable and confident, and only you know where you'll get the best of both. But if you see or hear of a Midwife... tell her (or him) they are wonderful for allowing such a life altering experience to be so wondeful for the Mom's and babies that choose them.

And if there are any Midwives that stumble upon my blog... God bless you for what you do. And thank you so very much for not allowing the techie world to relegate you to history.