Having a baby can be stressful in many ways: the preparation, the shopping, the name picking, changes in your body, habits, diet, etc. However, if you are like most people, you are probably not really stressed out about the day of the birth. You may be a little scared, but you don’t lose sleep over what’s going to happen that day; after all, you’re in the hands of great doctors, and there is really nothing else for you to know. Ah, ignorance is bliss. Now, if you are anything like me and think it’s important to know WHY things happen the way they do, and you find yourself questioning whether epidurals are for you, or pitocin, or c-sections, or even the place where you will be having birth, then you have added ten tons of stress to your life.
Natural delivery spans a wide spectrum of beliefs and definitions. Some think it means “vaginally” and some think it means “drug-free.” I use the term as “drug-free” or “intervention-free.” Preparation for a natural birth is 100% focused in making sure you understand that your body is made to do this, and there is nothing your body can do that you weren’t built to handle. Leaving high-risk pregnancies and complications aside, this should be true for most human women: your body was made for this, and you should be able to handle it. Once you truly believe that, you are prepared to refuse any kind of intervention, and you may proceed to actually preparing to handle the road to delivery. Management techniques include breathing exercises, massages, tips and tricks like moving around, swaying your hips back and forth, applying a warm rag to your hoo-hoo to help stretch the muscles during surges (aka contractions), etc. One of the most important techniques, though, is the power of mind-over-body. This is why positve thoughts are so important during your pregnancy and leading up to the day of the delivery. This is supposed to be the stress-free approach to labor because you make the rules, you are in control, and you create a supportive care team around you who are on the same page and will help you through all of it.
Stress-free? Stress-free my ASS. I’m going to tell you about the roller coaster I have been going through.
First off, I was very excited to go natural and I was even happier when my husband, Brian, jumped on board. Right now I can very confidently say that he and I are completely on the same page, which is both reassuring and comforting. The problems started the day we started taking the birthing classes.
What not everybody knows is that birthing classes are not one-size-fits-all. Depending on what kind of delivery you want to have, and where you are planning on having it, you might choose to take a class at a hospital (where, as I hear, they mostly focus on pain management leading up to the moment you get your epidural), or take it at a birthing center (focused on the birthing center experience, and tools available to you to maximize chances of a successful delivery), or independent classes focused on any technique you want (Hypnobirthing, Lamaze, etc). We went independent because we wanted an expert Hypnobirthing class, and we did not want to take it at a hospital where the class is mostly made of mothers choosing epidural. Little did we know that our class would be 10 couples planning a homebirth, and us: the sinners of the pack who will have a hospital delivery.
We felt like the Peggy and Al Bundy of the class. I asked a lot of questions about what to do if complications should arise, and nobody seemed eager to hear the answers. I also asked about FACTS and WHY we should do this or that, and I had to press to get a straight answer from the instructors. It was like the whole class had drank some sort of kool-aid and were in a trance. Let me first say that I have nothing against homebirths. In fact, I would have gone for one myself if Brian had considered it. We decided that, since this is our first, and we don’t really know how my body will handle it, we would stay close to medical attention in case it’s needed. We might consider a homebirth for our second baby (depending on the level of success of our first intervention-free birth). Having said that, having a homebirth does not excuse them from not asking tough questions! By not educating themselves all around, they are just as clueless as people who don’t do research at all. I swear, people, I felt completey out of place. Even the teacher would throw zingers at us for choosing hospitals, and every class she would have something to say about how doctors are evil, hospitals are awful, and how homebirth is really the only way to go.
I really wish I had listened to my gut and just gotten my money back on the second week. What I wanted to be a great learning experience on natural birth, managing tough situations, and even maybe preparing us for a homebirth in the future, turned out to be a directed bashing session that made me extremely fearful of my future. I couldn’t help thinking: OMG, are the midwives at the hospital going to do things I don’t want them to do without my consent? Are they REALLY on my side? Am I going to have to defend myself against them on that day? Should I bring a lawyer with me to observe???
You might think this is very silly: doctors and nurses know what they are doing and it should be for the best of the baby, so there is no sense in questioning their actions. The problem is that Brian and I believe that nobody else, except for the two of us, really know what WE want the experience to be like. Doctors and nurses may truly do their best, but we are the ones who want to make the decisions on what to do, approaches, interventions, etc. Being at a hospital is scary because the staff has seen it all and gone through it all, and they will have a standard procedure for everything, even if it might not apply to my particular situation (they’ve seen so many zebras that they often don’t recognize a real horse). In fact, only 10% of births at hospitals are “natural” and many nurses admit to never having witnessed one in their careers. So, considering that I’m going to be pushing a human being out of my body, I expect that I will be in a very vulnerable position to fight them off and have my way on things they might think are routine.
This is the reason I have been crying at the drop of a hat every day this week: I am SCARED SHITLESS. I am full of fear and stress that I’m preparing for a WAR on what should be one of the happiest days of my life: welcoming a new member of a family that my husband and I made out of our love for each other.
It is not a war, but I have taken a defensive stance. It didn’t have to be this way.
Now Brian and I are seriously considering to stop attending the classes, and count our gains/losses. We learned a lot of labor-management techniques, and we will definitely use them. Now it is up to us to create our own plan and undo all the fear we have had engrained in us for the past 7 weeks. We need to focus on building a good rapport with our care team, and learn to trust that everybody will follow our wishes (within the realm of safety), and it will be a wonderful experience.
I have a long way to go to recover from this dreadful episode in what has otherwise been a very healthy and wonderful pregnancy. I am sure Brian’s positive attitude and calm demeanor will help me get there.
Thank you for reading, and wish me luck.
ina