This is a topic I have been wanting to write about for quite some time but in the interest of not coming across all JUDGEY or OBNOXIOUS or SMUG or...whatever, I have hesitated. I like to think the decisions I make do not or at least should not reflect badly on the people around me who choose differently, but if I'm being completely honest - if anyone who is particularly opinionated is being completely honest - the decisions you make almost have to make an implicit judgment on the opposite decisions of others - right? So. Even though I give the politically correct, "This is what I believe, I have no judgements on others," and even though I believe that I believe that, I also make decisions in my life for a reason. On the other hand, there is that little, we really and truly are all different and so one person's slap is another person's love tap, one person's snack is another person's meal blah, blah, BLAH.
Should I just say it? This is a baby story. Or rather, a pregnancy story.
Even before I got pregnant, I had many, many different opinions running through my head on what is best for mom, what is best for baby during delivery. After hearing only 10 thousand different opinions on Pitocin, induction, epidurals, babies born after 45 hours of excrutiating labor, babies born who promptly flip off their mother for making the wrong decision, wonderful, hippie, flowery births AND ON AND ON, I came away from it all only knowing that I feel strongly about one thing and that is To Not Be Induced. I have a hard time believing that before Pitocin (a synthetic induction drug), babies simply FORGOT TO BE BORN. I know, I know, babies also died more often during child birth way back in the day but I tend to believe that was more because doctors or midwives milked the family cow, wiped their hands on a dirty apron and pulled a baby out than, say, a baby just sitting around in utero deciding it rather likes it in here and what's more? Free food! From a spout delivered directly to my belly!
That's REALLY the long and short of it. I mean, I could make it longer. MUUUUCH longer, but if I had to sythesize my argument into a short, sweet note, it would read the above few sentences. To finish the thought just a tad more, I hold the belief that induction leads to more pain which often leads to a necessary epidural which often leads to a labor slow down which often leads to a c-section.
Yes. I believe giving birth hurts, like hell. I haven't even done it yet and I'm already good and scared about the excrutiating pain most women like to describe to me. OH YOU'LL WANT AN EPIDURAL TRUST ME. I have heard...I can't say how many times. And that very well may be true. I have not ruled that out, I have only said I'd like to get as far as I can without intervention, in order to give my body time and space to do what it is supposed to do. I have also heard at least one woman say, though painful, without Pitocin, birth wasn't that bad. Please don't hit, I'm just the messenger.
And yes, yes. I also know I could have an emergency c-section, I could go waaay past my due date and decide on a c-section for other medical reasons. I may go into labor and then it could stop, inexplicably, for several hours. I get that there are outlying things that may happen that I cannot control. I do. Which is why I plan to give birth in a hospital where SHOULD something go wrong, I have all the comforts of modern medicine behind me. Still, another subject I probably shouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, I believe it should remain legal for woman to give birth at home. In fact, Alabama has some odd laws on that one and pretty much forces women into hospitals. The Bible Belt just kills me sometimes.
My main goal though remains to not be induced.
In that vein, I looked into hiring a doula and was sitting on go until I ran the whole thing past Bud and he pretty much nixed the idea. There is a lot more to it than that, but in the end we are taking a natural child birth class and giving it a go on our own. What is that expression about fools and naivete and COMPLETE IDIOCY? Yeah, that one. That's us.
So. If you have an opinion, or a thought, or a PASSIONATE BELIEF THAT IT SHOULD ONLY BE DONE THIS WAY AND THIS WAY ONLY. Do tell.