Birthin' Babies

Giving birth. It's exciting and terrifying and beautiful and really horrifically messy. For most women, I think it's fair to say, it's a pretty big deal how this experience goes down, even the third time around. I know I have some pretty strong opinions on the subject.

[Which, by the way, apply to me and me alone. My least favorite kind of blog posts are those about some baby/mothering/parenting issue that leave me feeling like the writer thinks their way is perfect and all other ways are 'le shit.' My number one belief about birth (and really most things mothering-related, but we'll stick with birth here for simplicity), is this: There aren't any absolutes. It's huge and it's individual and it should happen the way mom wants it to happen as far as is possible and if it can't follow her plan, she should be informed and supported lovingly through the change.]

Let the whining begin. I want to go to my midwife. She delivered Quinn at 12:30 a.m. on her night off. She'd been there for hours. She rushed over in her slippers. I unexpectedly had to have emergency surgery shortly after Quinn was born and she stayed until 3:30 a.m. when I came out of post-op.

She is not covered by my current insurance, which is weird, difficult COBRA insurance from Saipan. It's my own damn fault. We knew we were pregnant when we decided to spend the winter overseas (ahem, HALF, of the winter since it is currently chunking down big wet snowflakes in a completely unnecessary February reprise of winter wonderland. Eff off mother nature, find your favorite midwife and birth the spring, please).

I knew it was a risk when we let our COBRA option on our stateside insurance expire. It was a financial decision, COBRA is expensive and we had coverage on Saipan. I didn't look ahead much, I didn't know if the pregnancy would last, I didn't know how long it would take Matt to get a new job when we returned, I willingly chose the cheaper option.

We wanted to go. We made it work. We tried, for once, not to bury our sense of adventure in practically and fear. Truly, it did work. It's fine, we're lucky, we have coverage. The current plan has a list of forty-seven OBGYNs in our area, including two doctors that friends have highly recommended.

But, (tearing of hair and rending of clothes) I don't want those doctors. [Stacey, use your big girl voice or you will have to go to your room until you stop making that horrendous noise.] I can't. I'm sad. I don't want an OBGYN. I've never gone to one. I want a midwife. I think OBs are scary and interventionist and they will mock me for my birth issues, which are many.

To rub salt in the wound, Matt got a job (yay!) and my midwife is covered (double yay!!), but there's a four month exclusion period (boo!). Which means, crushingly, that our shiny, new insurance, with it's pretty, coppery coverage of the midwife of my dreams, will take effect about three days after my due date.

Oh, I know. Grow up. Be a big, mother, lawyery, responsible grown up woman and stop acting like a sniveling child. I have three options:

1) Pick a damn doctor off the list and go and see him/her for the love of God.
2) Meet with billing at my midwife's practice and figure out if we can swing the birth using her on a payment plan.
3) Remain in my current frozen state of refusal to act, while ruining my marriage by whining about the problem incessantly and flying into insane rages when my husband suggests rational solutions, like, oh, I don't know, interviewing a few of the doctors on the list. Then, show up at an ER in late June like a meth-addicted, eighteen-year-old yelling that I'm in pain and that there's something weird between my legs. Oh, what, a baby? How did that get in there? Which might earn me a spot on the reality show 'I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant' if you all don't blow it by outing this post.

You are thinking I'm crazy. (Yeah, yeah, you already knew, but in a whole new sense.) Why the irrational rejection of OBs? After all, they are extensively and specifically trained to - wait, what, what was that again, oh yeah - DELIVER BABIES. I know. I know. I just have some strong opinions of my own about birthing my particular babies and the two different sets of ideas don't always work together. Just a few small things. Like, for instance...

I don't want a hep-lock in my arm. I've heard all the arguments for them. It's easier if something goes wrong. It's for hydration. It's mean to make the nurses' job so much harder. It's hospital policy. It's not that I don't care, it's that I truly think my comfort outweighs these arguments. I hate needles. I don't want that one in my arm unless there's a pressing medical reason. Period. Last time, unexpectedly, there was a pressing medical reason shortly after Quinn's birth and low and behold, they got the horrible IV needle into my arm in seconds. No one even thought anything of it. So, I just don't buy it.

I want to eat when and if I feel like it. I have long births. I've never been particularly hungry, but I had a milkshake half way through Garrett's and it was great (the milkshake).

I'm not interested in any kind of 'clock' once my water breaks. There's disagreement in the medical community about this. I've done my research. A lot of doctors have a strict twelve hour to c-section clock once the water breaks. Most midwives believe 24-48 hours is fine, with some monitoring.

I don't even want to discuss induction and/or Pictocin unless there is some crucial medical emergency. Garrett was ten days late, so I'm pretty firm on this one.

I guess the bottom line is that I've had two memorable, really long, vaginal, un-medicated births during which I felt heard, supported and completely unpressured. Both of those births were with non-OBGYN practitioners. I've heard some stories about hospital births with OBs that broke my heart, not because I think birth should go a certain way (untrue) or that my way is best and all woman should try it (completely false, I am c-r-a-z-y), but because the women sharing with me felt let down by those around them and bullied or ignored by their OB, if that language isn't too strong, who used fear tactics to insist on certain interventions.

Those medical interventions might have been one hundred percent necessary, I have no idea. What brings tears to my eyes is that the women telling me these stories felt uninformed and pressured and also felt, looking back, that if the doctor involved had been a little more patient, she might have gotten a different experience. She might also have had the same birth, with the same interventions, but felt differently about the experience. That is important. Not as important as a healthy baby and a healthy mom, but it is important.

Soooo, I'm afraid. I'm afraid to pick an OB and just go. Also, I'm exhausted by the prospect of fighting my battles for a second time. I know my midwife will put the counter orders in my file prior to my delivery and I know the hospital will respect them. I know there is a 95% chance that she will attend, not only the moment of my birth, but my labor, and not some doctor I've never met who will fly in and demand to know how many seconds it's been since my water broke and why I'm sucking down a chocolate milkshake.

Adding my two births together, I've labored a total of around fifty-five hours. I have many memories, gross, touching, frightening, precious, miraculous, sweet and shocking. I have a lifetime's moments and impressions and experiences packed into those two, relatively short periods in my life.

I've had my husband by my side twice and my mother once. Their presence has meant the world to me. But, when I think back over it all, in terms of the people sharing those crucial hours with me, the moment that stands out for me was just before transition during Quinn's birth. The contractions were long and hard and painful and I was overwhelmed and tired. I sobbed while I rocked back and forth and moaned to myself. My midwife put her hand on my leg and looked into my eyes and said "These are huge contractions, you are almost there, I want you to know, it's amazing what you're doing here."

That is really, really important to me.