Birthing

image by Birgit Amadori cesarean-art.com

So many women in my life are either expecting, have just had, are planning, or have sadly lost a baby recently. As someone who is open to the possibility of trying for a third child, and therefore frequently thinking about pregnancy, babies and adding to our family, the issue of birth often comes into my head. Mind you, my own sweet baby is only ten months, but I can easily remember the feelings of finding out I was pregnant for the first time... And I vividly remember the births of both of my children.

I am going to be selfish in this post and just put it out there my feelings about how my children were brought into this world. Both my healthy, beautiful, much loved and adored children were born via cesarean.

First, let me just get this out of the way. My children are separate from their birth. They are not their birth. I do not associate my children with a negative birth experience and yes, I am extremely thankful each and every day that they are alive and healthy. Would I go through c-sections again and again to have them here, yes. Do I think there is no place in this world for cesareans? Of COURSE NOT. I know that many many babies and mothers have been saved by this technology, and by other obstetric advances. But I am not here to argue that at all. I believe modern obstetrics has its place, but I truly believe that for most women, birth does not need to be a medical 'condition', and with proper prenatal care, support and confidence most women can have healthy normal vaginal births, with a low trauma factor, either physical or emotional.

So, with that said... I believe the way a woman births her children is a very personal experience. Some women love a natural birth in the water with low lights and candles, others love the hospital with the nurses and the sterility and the false sense of security that "if something goes wrong..." and other's want to do it by themselves with just their partner! (unassisted childbirth, anyone?). Really, whatever floats your boat is fine by me.

From the moment I found out I was pregnant with my son, I expected, I KNEW I'd have a natural delivery. The idea that I'd join the instinctive tribe of women who have KNOWN what it is to fully realize their bodies' ability and potential to bring forth life was exciting to me like nothing else I've ever thought about. Birth was for me. Not because I was a fist to the sky crunchy mother-goddess, not because I'm obstinate, but because, to me, it was the ultimate right of passage. The full realization of womanhood.

But of course, not everything in life is as we expect it to be. Due to my son's breech presentation, discovered at about 32 weeks, I felt that possibility of a natural delivery slipping away from me. The fear that I was going to be cut open to have my baby was becoming very real. Of course I did all the tricks. The hours of pelvic tilts, the birth ball, I never once leaned back in a chair, I walked, and crawled and did hours of expensive chiropractic techniques that did NOTHING (well, it did make my back feel good...) and moxibustion and body work. He was just breech. Staying that way. And so, at 39 weeks, he was born, with a huge incision and a non-sympathetic OB and pretty much a non-sympathetic everyone else, because hey, birth is birth and I should get over it. Was I worried about it hurting? No. I expected birth to hurt, any which way you have it. What was I upset about? I suppose, for me, it was the complete lack of participation in bringing my child into the world. I went from his birth ultimately being this thing that "I" did, to me not doing anything at all. It was humiliating. It hurt. I felt helpless while I felt nothing but tugs and pulls and pressure and my arms were strapped down and people happily chatted around me while I put on the brave face and pretended that it was just all about the baby and that I didn't care what was happening. I know some women liken their cesareans to rape and violation. I don't feel that at all. If anything, I got lucky and had a "great" cesarean experience, both times. Uncomplicated, relatively quick and non-emergent. No one made me feel like I was endangering my baby by trying to continue with labor (which I've never had a moment of) and that was that.

With my second child. A failed attempt at trying to VBAC. I opted again for a cesarean (my choice! Ha ha!) at 41 weeks because the next step was "fetal monitoring" and "risk of stillbirth is increasing" and, oh, "we're moving in two weeks, and likely you'll fail trying to deliver normally anyway and still end up with a section, so you'll need the extra few days to recover". I'm SO angry about this one. My daughter's birth was supposed to have been so very different. But it wasn't, except that I knew what was coming this time. And I laid down again, spinal numbing me, and once again blocked out all the happy chatter of the doctors and nurses and the tugging and pulling and just focused on one thing, hearing her first little cry as she was pulled out. Because my arms were strapped down and all I could do was turn my head, someone laid her next to me after she was cleaned up (because she was covered in my blood) and I could kiss her cheeks and soothe her with my voice because she was screaming. I remember apologizing to her silently that I failed again, to do what I had hoped I'd be able to do.

And that's it. Afterwards I recovered like all good c-section mommy's; taking my percocet and motrin and slowly getting back to normal. Except for the scar, adhesion pain and the numbness that I HOPE goes away someday just below my navel, I seem to be back on track physically.

Likely, if I'm fortunate enough to have another baby, I'll be heading down c-section road once again, for what OB is going to allow me to risk that 1.1% chance of uterine rupture with a VBA2C.

Believe me when I say I wish more than anything that this did not bother me. I wish I could just brush it off. I wish I was like those momma's who happily signed up for their second, third, fourth! cesarean and didn't feel like they really lost out on something big. B.I.G. big. But that's just me. It's hard to let it go and I hate that I still get a pang in my heart when someone writes about their amazing VBAC, their perfect homebirth, their waterbirth, the amazing sense of power they felt, the joy, the emotions, the strength, the "I never knew what I was capable of doing until...", and on. Usually the utter defeat I felt surrounding my own birth experiences comes back to me to be felt anew.

I'm not sure why bitching about your cesarean become such a taboo subject these days. Women complain about labor and how much it hurts and their tears and their contractions and crappy epidurals until the cows come home, but if you have a section, it's not really worth mentioning. OR, some think you "got off easily". This, usually coming from someone who either a) has not given birth, or b) has not had a c-section and has no comparison. Of course, I have not had a natural delivery, but from the women I know who have..., I don't know any who wished they'd had a cesarean. Is having a cesarean the worst thing that could ever happen, of course not. I'm not that ignorant to the vast injustices that are occurring in this world and to the tragedies that befall good people regularly. But do I believe there is great benefit in delivering one's baby in a healthy, supportive and natural manner? Yes. Do I think the way we treat pregnancy and birth and subsequent infant care is a telling indication of the priorities of a society. Yes. Is there a place for modern medicine and interventions in childbirth? I certainly believe so. But a 31% c-section rate? Unnecessary.

I know that all I'm ever supposed to be thankful for is for a healthy baby. The why's and how's are no longer important. I got it. GOT. IT. Thank you very much. I love being a mom. More than anything. I appreciate and love and am amazed by my children every day and thank God or whoever that we were able to make them. I am SO lucky, so freaking unbelievably lucky I haven't experienced a miscarriage and that it was not a long and heartbreaking road to even get pregnant. I am SO fortunate. TRUST ME, I GET THAT. This does not negate the fact that I still value the birth experience for women and that something that is so intrinsically natural and beautiful was, for me, major surgery. It's hard to be thankful for that experience. Thankful for my beautiful babies, yes. Thankful for abdominal surgery, not so much. Being a mother in and of itself is the most amazing gift, but mothering is separate from birth and I think a lot of that gets forgotten when talking about birth. Birth is, to me, yours and yours alone. When that baby is coming and labor is moving him/her down, that is all you, girl. That is not motherhood, that is womanhood. The second that baby is out, then you're a mother. And that's another topic altogether.