On the heels of this article making it's internet rounds, I wanted to post an exerpt from a book I just finished. It's called Great with Child by Beth Ann Fennelly and Joanna Goddard recommended it on her blog Cup of Jo a while back with advice along the lines of, everyone tells you a nightmare story but this book brought me happiness and comfort when I was pregnant.
I began not loving it for a variety of sort of defensive and petty reasons but ended up LOVING it and would highly recommend it to any woman. Whether you have a child or not. (I'm especially thinking of you: Nancy, Miriam and Summer).
In the book, the author is writing letters to a young pregnant friend - she has a two year old herself. At one point the pregnant friend asks why she chose an unmedicated birth and below is what she replied. I love her response because it's a question I've been asked countless times. A woman I used to work with, when I told her I was going to try unmedicated, told me she thought women who did that were just trying to prove a point. YES. Best way to prove a point. PAIN. I SHOWED YOU.
I've never had a succinctly good answer except to say instincts + my own medical take-aways. I realize anyone could write the above article inversely and call it science. Neither is probably true. That's why it is such an intensely personal decision.
Anyway. On to the much better written words of Beth Ann Fennelly:
"My daughter came into the world in Galesburg, Illinois, about a year after you left that prairie town. Because you lived in a dorm, and for less than a year, perhaps you didn't know many people in Galesburg, who are like the farms they live on - hardworking and practical. In the hospital, in the day or two after delivering, women walk the hallways leaning on the arms of sisters or mothers to get their systems running smoothly again. Pausing in front of the nursery glass, they trade birth stories. And when they heard mine, they eyed me. In the months before delivery, I had studied Lamaze, practiced breathing techniques and visualization in order to deliver my daughter without painkillers. And though the delivery turned out to be complicated, I managed. But I knew I looked pretty beat-up. Then one woman asked a qeustion which, though simple, I still haven't answered to my satisfaction: "Why didn't you take the drugs?"
Why, indeed? The medical professionals kept offering them; "You don't have to feel a thing!" one nurse promised. The easy answer is that it's usually best for the fetus if the mother doesn't take drugs because they pass through her uterus. The baby may be born sluggish and unresponsive and could even have problems sucking, which impairs breast-feeding and bonding. But, to be practical, doctors can administer the drugs so late that only a very small amount passes to the baby. And even the drugs that do pass to the baby haven't been shown to have a lasting effect. So there's only a small risk to baby from the drugs, but obvious benefits to the mother, which returns me to the question, why didn't I take them? An epidural would have made the birth easier on me - and certainly on poor Tommy, who came away from the three-hour pushing stage ready for an epidural himself. And after all, I'm no enemy of technology (aside from letters to you, I do most of my writing on a laptop) or of shortcuts (I eat salad from a bag; several boxes in my pantry proclaim "just add water").
So my decision to have a natural childbirth was only partly influenced by what would be best for Claire. I was also thinking about the birth experience I most desired: to be fully awake and alive to the experience I would undergo, even though it would involve tremendous pain. I didn't want to deadpan the pain if it meant deadening the other emotions that would accompany the pain. I thought then, and still believe now, that being responsive and responsible to my experience would make it a better one.
Oh, it's a strange dilemma we modern women have, really. In previous generations, one didn't have the option of "choosing" how to deliver - all childbirth was "natural," and the numbing of labor pains, or any pains, simply wasn't possible. But in 1847 a doctor named James Young Simpson placed a hankerchief dabbed with chloroform over the nose of his laboring patient. The woman, whose previous delivery had involved three days of intense labor, delivered a healthy child in less than an hour. When she woke later, she had a hard time believing the doctor when he told her she'd already given birth.
Thus began the marriage of childbirth and medication, and for many it's been a happy marriage. By 1853, painkillers were being marketed widely for all sorts of medical procedures, and our relationship to pain changed. No longer did people have to suffer through their pain - but this also means that no longer could such suffering lead to enlightenment, or let the sufferer participate in the act of returning to health.
Don't get me wrong, there are time when anesthesia is not only helpful but a blessing. You witnessed your mother's last months, so you know this better than anyone. But it's also true that in many situations we can tolerate more pain that is commonly acknowledged, and there may be benefits in doing so.
The way the medical establishment treats pregnant women seems a metaphor for the way our industrialized, anesthetized culture treats all its citizens - we are offered drugs as the first solution. We become so used to the quick fix that any pain - sometimes even the pain of daily existence - needs to be numbed. Anesthetics, including the anesthetic of alcohol, are accepted as a sustained response to the waking worlds, a way of coping with daily life. However, "anesthetic" means "without aesthetic," that is, without the skills to create the sensory impressions that make daily life meaningful.
...
So I can only say, both as a sufferer undergoing a transformative experience and as a person interested in interpreting the events in the world, a natural childbirth was best for me. My decision reflects a larger philosophy, I suppose - that we are obligated to feel what we're feeling. I believe understanding and articulating our suffering helps us understand and articulate our joy."
Also, if you read the first article about the safety of epidurals there's some quote about a large thing coming through a small opening and how painful that is. Can I just throw this out there - and all of you mothers will get this - it's not the actual delivery that hurts - at least that isn't the most intensely painful part. It's the contractions. If I hear one more lemon/watermelon comment my head will explode. Which would probably be fine with all of those people who are tired of hearing me talk about child birth.
Also, also, I promise this unmedicated childbirth bit is only a fraction of the book so if you find yourself annoyed with the hippie-blather, have no fear, there's lots more to love about the book.
Also, also, also, you just totally know this second birth will involve an epidural now that I've written this.
