Suzy Q Homemaker

I’ve heard it from I don’t know how many people now that I’m a “strong woman” who gave birth without drugs so this recovery should be a piece of cake.  While it is true I can push a human out of my vagina after enduring intense labor, all without the use of nerve-blocking  agents and narcotics, ankle surgery is hardly comparable.  Labor pain goes away once the baby comes out.  My surgeon drilled holes in my bones.  There’s a pretty big difference.

I begrudgingly stepped away from a labor conversation recently.  If I hadn’t, I know I would have put my beliefs on the table and risked a friendship.  I can’t do that.  What I assumed is that everyone who knows me knows how much I cannot stand to hear about women looking forward to getting drugs during their labor like they’re looking forward to candy on Halloween.  Debating this subject is getting old for me so I usually avoid it altogether. It just happened that I was complaining about my foot and got teased for it because I was supposed to be this superwoman who doesn’t need drugs to help me bring a baby into the world.  It was teasing, I know, but it bothered me the more I thought about it.

My birthing advice is almost always unsolicited but I can’t help it when people say things like “omg gimme the drugs”.  To each their own, I suppose.

And that’s really all I have to say about that.  I’m against using pain meds during labor.  The end.

I was asked by a friend to flesh out some things on natural childbirth.  She’s currently pregnant with her second baby and is seriously considering it, which I am so stoked about!  The thing is, I’m not sure where to begin.  There are books and articles galore on this subject, so I thought I’d write a little article of my own on how to effectively prepare yourself for a natural childbirth.

When I was pregnant with Corey nine years ago (!), a friend of Jamie’s told us about a birthing method called The Bradley Method of Childbirth.  We were already considering a drug-free birth, but this gave us a focus to our studies.  At the time, we couldn’t afford any classes, so we did our best to follow the practices outlined in the book we bought.  When it came time for the actual birth, we were fairly confident of our goals and we had a clearly defined birth plan.  At the hospital, the staff was far from supportive.  Because I was going drug-free, I was LOUD.  The nurses seriously told me to be quiet because I was disturbing the other patients.  An anesthesiologist was then sent in to persuade me to get the epidural, to which I consented.  The epidural gave me the shakes, slowed my labor, and made it incredibly difficult to push.  I considered myself lucky not to have had a c-section.

My next three births were: 1) Bradley Birth at the hospital, 2) Piticin-induced, pain med-free hospital birth, and 3) home birth.  From all of these experiences, I learned that there are three things a woman should have in order to have a natural chilbirth:

1. Education
2. Support
3. Committment

There are numerous books on the subject of birth.  There are also several methods of childbirth.  My first advice is to read.  Read as much as you can about all the different birthing methods.  Most likely your local La Leche League group has a lending library with birthing books of all types.  If you can afford it, take birthing classes specific to the birthing method you have chosen.  We took Bradley classes during our second pregnancy and it made all the difference in the world.  Not only will you learn what to do during a “normal” labor, you’ll learn about what to do when there are problems.

I went to the hospital in very early labor with Aiden (my second).  After being there for almost 24 hours, my labor stalled.  I had reached what is referred to as the “natural alignment plateau”.  It doesn’t happen to everyone, but when it does happen, hospital staff gets antsy and they could start threatening you with words like “pitocin” and tell you that your baby “needs” to come out.  The thing was, I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink in an entire day.  My body was shutting down.  We called our Bradley teacher to ask what we should do and she came to the rescue with a Lunabar and a bottle of juice.  I ate a little, sipped some juice, and you know what?  My labor picked up and Aiden was born within the next couple of hours.

This leads me to the issue of support.  A woman who wants to have a natural birth needs to surround herself with a circle of family members and friends who will support her decision.  As we learned with our first birth, it isn’t enough to have a birth plan if the hospital staff won’t honor it.  No, we needed a team to stand up for our decisions.  Even during pregnancy, you should try to associate with people of the same mindset.  It isn’t helpful to have family members and friends who do nothing but criticize or make jokes about your decision.   I can’t tell you the number of times we heard comments like, “Oh, when I went in, I was all GIMME THE DRUGS,” and then this cackling laughter like getting a needle in your back is this thing that every woman who is NOT CRAZY needs to get.  Personally, I can’t commiserate with women who talk about their labors like that.  I find myself pursing my lips and shifting uncomfortably in my seat when discussions get started.  During a conversation with some women at church not too long ago, I had to leave the room.

In addition to having a supportive birth team, try to have a supportive hospital team, too.  If your doctor is all for having a natural childbirth, make sure you are very clear with him or her about what you really want during your labor and delivery.  Even small things like what positions you want to use during the pushing stage are very important.  With Aiden’s birth, I was on my side when he started crowning.  While the nurses were yelling at me to “stop pushing” until the doctor came in, my labor team was whispering to me to do what my body was telling me to do.  And when the doctor came in, he had the gall to tell me to roll onto my back because HE was more comfortable with me in that position.  Had someone not been holding my leg, I would have kicked him in his smug little face.  Less than thirty seconds later, Aiden’s head came out.  The universe did not collapse upon itself because I pushed a baby out of my vagina in a position that my doctor wasn’t “comfortable with”.

Even nurses need to support your decisions.  My best nursing support was with Simon’s birth, which was induced by pitocin.  I still didn’t want pain medication, and my nurse was amazing.  She put a sign on my door telling everyone who came in not to even mention drugs.  She allowed me to get up and move around, and even joined in the coaching when I really didn’t think I could do it anymore.  Her only fault was telling me to stop pushing when my body decided that it was time.  No one told her that natural births can go really fast!  Simon came out on the bed and my doctor missed the birth entirely.

Because of all of my negative hospital experiences and fast pushing stages, it only made sense for me to have a home birth with Timothy.  I’m not saying that to ensure a natural birth, you should do it at home.  It was just what ultimately worked best for me.

Lastly, if you want a natural birth, you need to commit.  Take all of the education and support you’ve gathered and really commit to having the birth that YOU want.  Have no doubt in your mind.  Push away any thought that you might want an epidural.  Don’t dwell on the what-if’s.  If you want a natural birth, I mean really want it, you can do it.  Doctors and nurses are not God.  You can tell them, “No.”  It is your body and your decision.  Do what you feel is best for you and your baby.  Because really, that’s what it’s all about.

x-posted on Blogher

There isn’t much to it, really.

I went to my midwife’s Tuesday for my prenatal and she told me what I can do to try to induce naturally. Then she said it’s pretty much up to me whether or not I wanted to try all the things she suggested or just wait and see. Don’t forget I was scheduled for a hospital induction that was supposed to be Thursday morning, so we only had a day and a half to get things going.

Obviously, I was like, yeah I’m going to do everything you suggest! Here’s the regimen:

-take labor tincture at the top of the hour
-20 min. of nipple stimulation w/breast pump
-20 min. walking
-20 min. rest

I did that all afternoon & early evening. At 9:00 I was timing my contractions cause they felt like they were getting regular. They were all less than five minutes apart & about a min. long, but not real intense. So I called my midwife to let her know since she wanted an update before 10:00. I took one more dose of the tincture, we ate some sugar-free klondike bars, then went to bed.

I read for a bit and then fell asleep as usual.

About 3:30, I felt something gush out of me and I thought my water had broken. It was blood, though, and that TOTALLY freaked me out. Jamie was able to get me to the bathroom where I discovered that I’d been bleeding a lot. I was feeling dizzy from the sight of it and laid down on the floor. He called the midwife & I heard him trying to answer all kinds of questions.

Then the real contractions started, like the ones I had to moan through and where I didn’t want Jamie to touch me. So I was all, woah this is it! in my brain while my body was like, don’t you move one inch, motherfucker.

While I was laboring on the bathroom floor, Jamie was getting the bed ready with the plastic & extra sheets & all, coming in to talk me through contractions whenever he heard me cowing. Cowing is the only word I can use to describe the noises I was making.

Once the bed was ready, my midwife was there to help get me into the bed. After a few minutes in bed, I had to barf. I was so glad cause barfing meant I was in transition and would be pushing soon. Soon ended up being like a few contractions after that.

It sounds gross, but during one of the pushing contractions, my water broke and splashed all over the place, even onto my chart that my midwife had left on the bed. I couldn’t laugh at the time, but I think it’s really hilarious now. I actually saw it happen and that’s something I’ll never forget.

As Timothy’s head was coming out, my mom came in. She made it just in time!

From the moment I woke up until Timothy was born, the whole thing was only an hour. AN HOUR! He was born at 4:30.

I never got to use the tub while in labor because it hadn’t had a chance to cool down, but I sat in it while everyone remade the bed and cleaned up. So that was nice.

My midwife thinks that all the bleeding was because I had a slight placental previa that never got diagnosed even with all the ultrasounds I had (she says only 60% of previas actually get diagnosed). Her assessment is based on their examination of the placenta & where my bags broke. In any event, when she determined that I was like 8 cm. after getting into the bed, she wasn’t worried about needing to transport me.

YAY HOME BIRTH!

My sister said it best in her interview with the Sundance Channel for her green wedding:

“A lot of people like to pick on the little things that you couldn’t do instead of looking at all the things that you could do. Because you can’t do everything; and just because you can’t do everything, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something.”

What I couldn’t do:

Give birth at home. We couldn’t afford to pay out-of-pocket for a doula, midwife, and all the supplies that one needs for a safe homebirth. Had we been able to afford it, I would have been all for it.

What I could do:

Have as intervention-free births as I saw possible. I won’t go into my birth stories, but all my children were born vaginally: one epidural, one Bradley, one induced Bradley.

The homebirth/hospital birth debate is exhausting, to say the least. And I had set out to write this long blog post about it. I’ll keep it simple today, though.

Here’s what any mother could do:

1. Read. Educate yourself before you even decide to get pregnant. Know your rights as a birthing mother and make an informed decision. And I’m not talking about picking up a magazine in the doctor’s office or skimming the google search page after typing in “childbirth.” I mean REALLY READ. Get some books from the library, borrow some from a friend, and check out some websites that aren’t designed to scare women into scheduling their c-sections.

2. Don’t get caught up in statistics. While informative, they are often used as scare tactics and are a poor means of defending any point.

3. Ask questions. Doctors are humans and can sometimes be wrong! If you don’t feel like you understand why they are performing a certain procedure on you, ask. And check out your doctor’s c-section rate. Ask him or her about their stand on performing c-sections.

I want to hear about happy births right now. My mind is racing and I’m grateful for my husband who has to listen to me bitch about stuff I read on the internet!