I knew the moment I got pregnant. It wasn't that we were trying - more that we'd stopped trying not to and were letting the karmic chips fall where they may. A little kernel of certainty just popped into my being and that was it. In daylight I laughed it off, thinking of all the people who take years and fortunes to conceive but was still unsurprised when my period didn't come two weeks later. It was confirmed a couple weeks after that when my sister brought an EPT and a bag of Oreos over after I'd told her on the phone that I was "late". That certainty of the pregnancy had rooted at conception as had my own certainty that this was perhaps one of the "rightest" things I'd ever done.
The daughter/stepdaughter of an RN, dermatologist and anesthesiologist, I was all set to go straight into the hospital and dial up my epidural - the "unnecessary" pain I'd heard so much about - no thanks! But then at twelve weeks I had my first visit with the group of female OBGYNs I'd signed up with. Five minutes in a room with a distracted, rushed woman who seemed as excited by my pregnancy as by the texture of the ceiling tiles, she told me to send my typed list of questions to the office administrator as she was out of time. Two weeks later I was herded into a room with twenty five or thirty other pregnant women, handed a copy of the most simple minded pregnancy book ever written, and treated like I had no more sense than a third grader in what was supposed to be my first pregnancy class. I was thoroughly insulted and completely offended. This "miracle" I was in the midst of was being treated as a commonplace illness - I could've been at a flu education seminar. I was severely disappointed in my care and turned to the first place I ever learned to go (beyond my parents) for information: the library. I read Naomi Wolf's Misconceptions and was shocked into action.
A friend three months ahead of me in pregnancy was going the midwife route and encouraged me to meet with them for a chat. Uncertain, I called them up for an appointment and about halfway through my pregnancy Tom and I went to meet them - two women who worked as a team and called their business "One Heart Midwifery". We sat down, they sat down, looked us in the eye, and spent over an hour with us answering every last question we had (again, a long, typed list). The only answer I didn't like was the one about pain medication - none available at a home birth. They weren't militant or defensive about it or in the least judgmental about my nervousness at the fact that it wouldn't be available. But I was absolutely willing after that meeting to go without drugs if it meant that I would be the one in charge of my pregnancy, that I would be treated as an intelligent person, that my husband would be respected and treated as a partner, and that my pregnancy would be treated as a joyful miracle and not as an illness. The midwives didn't think I needed drugs and I needed the midwives - not choosing to birth with them after that meeting would have been like not choosing to live in Paradise after being given a choice between that and Bakersfield.
The difference in care to me was so profound: I had been raised by health care providers who loved their professions, who were truly healers, and who treated all people with profound respect. I'd rarely needed medical care outside of their abilities and when I did was usually treated by a colleague with similar values. This experience with the mainstream women's birth center and my exposure to the statistics of birth in America through Naomi Wolf's book - and the countless other books and articles I read afterward floored me - this was not medicine how I knew medicine to be from my family. I'm not now, nor have I ever been a drug taker or one who shied from pain. If I needed narcotics I generally cut in half my doses and weaned myself off in half the expected time. I went years between doses of acetaminophen or ibuprofen and had been trying to get my parents to embrace herbal and homeopathic remedy teas for years. But my head had been so filled with the notion that pain in childbirth was extreme and unnecessary that it was pretty much all I knew about birth before becoming pregnant and it had me afraid. My new exposure to childbirth through the midwives' patient answering of my questions and the wonderful books on homebirth and natural childbirth allayed my fears. Thanks to my library I know knew enough to be more afraid of hospital birth than homebirth - the statistics were in my favor.
I didn't look back once from my decision. Not forty hours into my first labor with my daughter when I not only asked only half jokingly if they really did have drugs in their medical bag and if not if anyone had a line into some heroin at that moment. You can do this, they told me, and I knew that I could.
Each of my births was complicated for a number of reasons - a petulant cervix each time, a 46+ hour labor with a 9 lb 5 oz girl the first time, a sunnyside-up 9 lb 2 oz boy the second time, an acynclitic 10 lb 11 oz boy the third. All with incredibly large craniums. The midwives told me quite factually, that I'd have been given a c-section had I been in the hospital for each one. I was shocked. They were difficult births, yes, but by no means impossible or dangerous or frightening. If I had only one word to characterize each it would be empowering. And disempowered is how I felt with the mainstream medical route. I'm by no means saying that experience is typical: I'm quite aware that my reaction was more than half the cause of that emotion. There are amazing doctors out there (I should know, I was parented by some) and some terrible midwives and vice-versa. But never did I feel at risk. My midwives need no extra drama in their lives. They are not immune from our litigious society and they need no bad press or shabby safety records. If I or my baby had been in danger at any time it would've been off to the hospital at once. If I had expressed a desire to go to the hospital at any time they would've had me out the door in a flash. Instead, they trusted me. And because they'd taught me to trust my body, my baby, and the fact that as a woman I was quite literally made to birth babies, I trusted in myself and the process and had three amazing home births.
It's not an easy job for them. I in particular make them work. It is not an easy job. My midwives agonized over a recent decision to allot 45 minutes rather than 60 for each and every pre-natal visit for each and every client. They travel to homes all over the area - homes over an hour away, homes of all kinds, clients with every ethnic, educational and financial background there is. They don't have the support of nurses, administrators, on-call OR staff. If it's a long and difficult labor they don't get breaks (except what they give each other), and I require both of them in a hands-on (and in) full court press each time. They come back the day after, then three days after, then a week after for the same lengthy post-natal checkups. When the woman who birthed after me had twins, one of them essentially moved in to the home to assist with breastfeeding and care for the first 48 hours. Can you imagine your typical OB doing that?
I'd dreamed of having a birth that was peaceful and easy - three pushes and into the water comes my baby. I figured the third time around I was due. Instead, the third time was by far the hardest. The pain I'd felt in the first was a fraction of the back labor from the second. And the third blew that one out of the water. I tried to explain to my mother that if I'd known ahead of time how much it was going to hurt - if pain were quantifiable, I would have opted for a c-section. Because you can't choose pain like that and be sane. But I'm so, so glad that you don't know ahead of time because you can always handle so much more than you think. I worry that stating that people might think I regret not having a c-section and the opposite is true: I suppose I need to edit that first part - that if I knew how much it would hurt I'd have chosen a c-section, unless I also knew that I could handle the pain. Pain is unquantifiable (despite the happy face to agonized face scale of 1 to 10 pain charts at the hospital) and our ability to handle pain is equally unquantifiable. We are so, so much stronger, capable of so, so much more than our current medical model allows for.
I would never, ever judge a woman's decision to choose hospital birth over home birth, c-section over natural: birth is incredibly individual and it takes a lot of faith and a lot of education to see past how birth is treated in our country. Above all else we are taught to fear
birth rather than to welcome it, to endure it rather than to celebrate it. I feel so empowered to have been allowed to birth free from fear. It is fear, I believe, that is the great hurdle in the way we birth in our country. So many times I've been told by women "Oh, I couldn't have had a home birth: I had to have an emergency c-section at the last minute because of ..." A myriad of reasons why medical intervention of one kind or another was deemed "essential" by the doctor. I was with my twin as she labored so amazingly through back labor and an incredibly acynclitic positioning of her baby. She did it with a doula, my brother, my mother, me, and her own faith in her body. After three hours of pushing she was sent for a last minute c-section. She's positive that committed, dedicated midwives would have been able to promote a vaginal birth. And I'm not saying it's the doctor's fault for not doing more as I know insurance companies severely tie physicians hands behind their backs which is shocking seeing as I know first hand how necessary it can be to have midwives willing to be extremely hands-on (and in).
I believe the most important outcome of birth should be a healthy baby and mama and that any birth that results in that is a successful birth. But the second most important outcome of birth should be an empowered mother. Parenting is by far the hardest job in the world and there is no room for self doubt in it. But the last thing we are told by our doctors and our drama-addicted media is that we should trust ourselves and the process. We are instead taught to fear. I watched a number of those birth story shows and the hallmark of each is drama. There's got to be a life and death, do or die moment in each one. Another mother of a child in my daughter's class had a baby a week before me - two hours of labor and one push - and I know they could have made that a life or death drama. We need to individually and as a society wean ourselves of the need for crisis and fear as a way to define our worth or quantify our suffering.
None of my births were easy. Easy birth isn't a guarantee no matter where or how you choose to deliver. Ironically, this last birth I had was pretty dramatic. But not scary. I've told the dramatic details to friends and family but I worry that it seems to have been blown out of proportion in its retelling within the community. Or morphed out of the framework in which I see it: yes it was dramatic but it was a huge success and a huge joy. The result was a healthy baby, and a healthy mama who while she is recovering from a heck of a physical ordeal isn't recovering from surgery. It was by far the hardest thing I've ever done but also one of the best. There are three others in the best category. And since I've done it and earned it (and don't have to do it again) I wouldn't change it. My first two children got to witness their brother's entry into this world. They cut his cord and they witnessed some of the labor that got him here. I believe it has made their acceptance of him so seamless, eliminated jealousy and inspired the constant kisses and hugs. They were never afraid either, because we weren't.
I love birth stories. I love hearing women tell the stories of their labors and deliveries from the funny to the tragic and everything in-between. I believe the more we bear witness to the accomplishment and power of our births the more we can own those stories, learn from them, choose our paths from the truths they offer us. We empower each other through the telling and listening. My friend Jenn attended this last birth with us. At my first birth my mother and sisters were present and that was wonderful (although my mother does not cherish the memory of seeing her daughter in pain). My brother was at the birth of my first son and there is a wonderful joy and bond from that. Jenn had her last two children with these midwives and is my longest and dearest friend from this community of ours and my children know and love her so we asked her to attend this birth and be their support. Her trust and faith in home birth and in the midwives and in me was essential in this birth because of its intensity and its drama. Her faith, humor and smile was steadfast. I can't imagine a more perfect person to have present and I'm grateful for the depth it has added to our bond.
My husband has been on board with home birth from that first meeting with the midwives. It's always been simple in his eyes. In fact his faith in me and the process made him state that he thought we could do it solo the third time. I don't know if he was kidding or not or if he knows if he was kidding or not but I know that the midwives were essential because of their vast knowledge and expertise with birth. It was entirely hands on. The most important thing in all three births was his unflinching faith in me and in the process of birth. He never exhibited fear, doubt, and shockingly even impatience (eve after three and a half hours in a tub of water). His commitment to the team we are, to being absolutely present and open and steadfast was essential to the success of the births. Although I would expect no less and am unsurprised by this, my gratitude is endless and my certainty in my choice of a life partner, husband and teammate constantly renewed.I opened a package from my midwives yesterday: a beautiful silver necklace in a simple outline of a pregnant woman's torso. In the belly a hollowed disc with the word HOMEBIRTH stamped around it, and hanging in the hollow that represents the womb the birthstones of my three children. I've heard of women receiving diamonds or emeralds form their spouses as birthing gifts but this simple treasure is far more valuable to me: it says "I chose this path and I trusted it and myself and we will reap its rewards each and every day we live." My gratitude to those two women is lifelong and bottomless.
Clavey Brooks Freer is a sweet, sweet boy. My love for him is boundless. Although mid-labor I was testing names for him that included "Tank Motherfucker Freer" for the pain he was putting me through, I realized immediately upon his arrival that it had been a difficult journey for him as well. (Which is a good thing given the explaining he would've been doing about his name all his life.) As my husband said a day afterward "Already life is unimaginable without him - it's like he's always been here and I can't remember what it was like before he came." His siblings and grandparents all adore him and his community has welcomed him so effusively. The meals delivered to our house have been lifesavers each time. I'm so saddened it will have to end and I'll have to cook each and every day again. It does take a community or a village - and a team of kickass midwives. I am cherishing each time he nurses, his love of eye contact, the way he curves into our bodies and needs us so completely. He is a miracle, a gift, a treasure and I can't wait to see who he will become at each and every step of his life. Welcome, my love.
I just now read this article titled A Woman's Nation: Reclaim Your Right to Birth Right and written by Christiane Northrup MD appeared today in the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christiane-northrup/c-section-or-natural-birt_b_323422.html
Rock on!
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