Excuse me but sometimes I get a little angry.

[Lucy&Jude'sMama]

I wrote this on a local mommy forum I'm apart of. I was reading a post from a girl who is happy she is being induced, wants all the drugs she can get, and doesn't care if she ends up with a c-section... She's just happy to get the baby out. 1st time mom, young (like me), hasn't done any research of her own.

I couldn't help but get a little bit frustrated and so I wrote this...

The way we birth our children should be our choice. Right?

I feel like I don't have a choice. For me the only choices I have is hospital or do it unassisted at home. I'm on medi-cal so that tells you my financial situation. The more I research and the more I've read stories of other woman who have UC'ed I am more empowered and I know this is the right direction for me. I'm lucky to have the support from my family and close friends (even if they think I'm slightly crazy)... Anyways so I'm happy about UCing this one, but I still get a little bit angry when I think about how if I was choosing to go to a hospital, get induced, get an epidural, have an emergency c-section..etc... I would be looked at as the norm. I wouldn't get any ill messages or feelings from people about it. I wouldn't have women looking at me like I was nuts. I would be having my baby the "normal" way.

However because I am choosing not to go that route unless truly medically necessary I am shunned. There has only be a handful of people who I've talked to about it who haven't automatically said "Oh that's not safe", "Oh but what if", "Oh but don't you need a doctor or a midwife".... No thank you but I don't believe I do. I believe I was born to handle birth... emotionally, spiritually, and physically. As I dive into my own path of research and soul searching I am finding more peace and love for myself regarding this decision. The doubt I am realizing more and more doesn't come from me, but from the negativity that surrounds this country regarding birth and how it "should be" managed.

Most people believe we do have a choice in how we birth our children. I believe this is true for women who plan hospital births, but for those of us who would like to be free and at home... well... sure you have a choice if you have $4000+. Oh and don't even think that medi-cal would dare pay for such a dangerous way of birthing. OIY! This country needs to get a grip. Pretty soon C-sections will be our only birthing "choice". Pretty soon that will be the norm and we will have to fight harder for our right to give birth the way we were meant to.

[Illiana]

thats a beautiful post and of course hit home for me as well.. I may borrow this sometime esp living in a 35% c/s state.

[Lucy&Jude'sMama]

Thank you!

[zapzipzee]

Good for you! And it didn't sound angry to me at all. Just contemplative.

[Annie Mac]

Originally Posted by Lucy&Jude'sMama

I feel like I don't have a choice. For me the only choices I have is hospital or do it unassisted at home. I'm on medi-cal so that tells you my financial situation.

Most people believe we do have a choice in how we birth our children. I believe this is true for women who plan hospital births, but for those of us who would like to be free and at home... well... sure you have a choice if you have $4000+. Oh and don't even think that medi-cal would dare pay for such a dangerous way of birthing. .

I'm curious as to what your choice would be if money wasn't an object. Would you not UC if you had other options available to you? I also think it's a horrendous situation, but my particular soap-box is the medical/insurance system in the US, rather than societal attitudes about birth. I'd personally be scared to UC, but that's me, and that doesn't mean I don't respect other decisions to do so.

[Ravin]

I'm with you. I feel I was bullied into the birth I had with DD because I was on AHCCCS. Now, I'm in a teensy bit better financial situation (crappy insurance at work with a little bit in an MSA, applying for AHCCCS as a backup). But, because my first birth was a C-sec (after the textbook chain of intervention I'd read about and thought I'd been prepared to defend against), my options are limited. Licensed midwives can't help me, and my husband isn't comfortable with us doing a homebirth unassisted, so if the NMD I have an appointment with next week won't help me, I'm going to be stuck with a hospital birth. Again. If she will help me, I'll be paying every "spare" penny I have for the next eight months straight into her pocket.

At least I have reason to believe hospital policies have improved somewhat at the particular hospital, and I've found a doctor who a friend has successfully VBAC'ed with.

I really wish DH would reconsider, but he doesn't like the idea of being the only responsible person there to handle the situation if the baby or I is in any kind of trouble.

[Lucy&Jude'sMama]

Originally Posted by Annie Mac

I'm curious as to what your choice would be if money wasn't an object. Would you not UC if you had other options available to you? I also think it's a horrendous situation, but my particular soap-box is the medical/insurance system in the US, rather than societal attitudes about birth. I'd personally be scared to UC, but that's me, and that doesn't mean I don't respect other decisions to do so.

Hi Annie,

Before I looked into unassisted childbirth I wanted a home water birth with a midwife. There are only 2 available in my area and they cost over $4000 and that doesn't include lab fees, ultrasounds, or your birth kit. The original plan for my family was to wait until we could afford it, but bing bam boom and baby #2 was brewing... A bit ahead of schedule.

I have no ill will towards midwifes and if money was not an issue now that I've been looking into UCing. I would love to have a midwife on call. I'd send her down to my nana's house which is literally around the corner from me and if I needed her she'd be right there, but otherwise she'd stay completely out of my way. The more I read about Ucing the more I love the idea so for myself what started as a hopeless situation turned into something I dream of doing. The idea of UCing doesn't scare me. I feel empowered by it. I smile every time I think about it. This is why I know and feel in my heart its the right direction for me, even if I do get a lot of crap about it from other women.

I don't think everyone is meant to UC. Sometimes you don't know how you will be until labor has begun. With my daughter I thought I'd be a raving lunatic... When I stub my toe I scream and cuss, when I feel yucky I'm a royal not-so-nice-word...etc. So naturally I thought during labor I would be a grouchy screaming woman who throws things at her partner. Hahaha But I was extremely nice. Even the nurses who came in were surprised every time that I wasn't hooked up to drugs because I was in such good spirits. I was nice even with fighting for what I wanted. I was able to voice what I wanted up until transition. I never once spoke of wanting drugs, I never threw anything, and I kissed and loved on my man all I could. In other words I was in a good emotional state to handle giving birth naturally and without complications.

Now I'll just state that I don't think its bad if you are a grouchy screaming woman who throws things... Hehehe... We all handle labor differently. I personally feel you need to be in the "correct" emotional state regarding your labor and birth to UC. I quote "correct" because I'm NOT saying that my "correct" emotional state is yours. If I personally get overly nervous, panicky, and/or negative during my labor I will know to go to the hospital because I will not be able to give my body and mind what it needs to bring my son into the world in a safe way. I put a lot of emphasis on emotions and body/mind connection during labor so for myself if I'm not connected up right the its not going to work for me. Of course there are also physical reasons for not UCing and medical emergencies that you can not always predict. I'm having prenatal care through midwives who work for the hospital. They don't do homebirth which is why my insurance covers them. This makes me feel safer in my choice to attempt UC.

Honestly my one fear of UCing is that I've been very negative about my physical appearance since I had my daughter. As much as I loved birthing naturally, I loved breastfeeding, I loved pregnancy in that its just an amazing journey that only we can know. As much as I loved all of that I was left with a very damaging self image. I'm trying to work on this because I do believe feeling so negative about my body will hold me back in labor. This is my main and really only doubt in my ability to UC, because I feel so negative about my body how am I going to be able to trust my body fully to do what it needs to. So I'm working on it and in a few months if I haven't been able to come to some sort of agreement with my mind/body connection (haha sounds funny but I don't know how else to word it) then I will look into a hospital birth. Not everyone with my situation would do that, but I feel it would be the right choice for me if that should happen.

[Annie Mac]

Yeah. Insurance really should cover a midwife. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

[SeekingMyZen]

oh how i've missed hearing other women's same convictions on this topic.. =)

you're absolutely right- nope, don't ever feel ashamed to say it. it's not your fault how others choose to react to what you're saying. you can explain all the logic til you're blue in the face (i've tried, believe me) and there will still be people who will call you crazy, "irresponsible" (which is just a laugh riot when you look at hospital statistics), and will never even have any inkling to even inquire into anything you're saying...

its awful that in our republic, people think that a majority can take away the rights of the minority.. and get away with it. it's crazy that a woman can decide to kill her unborn child, but god forbid you want to birth your child naturally how it's been done for thousands of years... the over regulation we have allowed the government to get away with is troubling.. perhaps more so terrifying.

seriously. the biggest thing i learned from my UC was that you have to just, seriously, forget what anyone else thinks- take it completely out of the equation. do your research, find out what feels right for you, and go for it... if anything is wrong, you'll know- the body has mechanisms for telling you. lol.

[zoebird]

seriously. the biggest thing i learned from my UC was that you have to just, seriously, forget what anyone else thinks- take it completely out of the equation. do your research, find out what feels right for you, and go for it..

i found that this self knowledge and process extends so far beyond UC, it's not even funny.

i completely do not care what other people think about me, my decisions, etc. i just do my work, do my best, and follow my intuition and just go for it.

[tammyswanson]

I hear you on that.

If you read the books by Dr Robert Mendelsohn, he talks about how his days in medical school, that back in the old days (1950's I think), that any doctor who had a c-section rate of 5 PERCENT was looked on as a pariah! Once docs figured they could get lots of moolah for all those expensive operations, the tide turned.

I always chuckle to myself when older women who had problems with their births (the one had two babies that had problems..though she smoked during her entire pregnancies and ate poorly) tell me how scared they are for me to do it at home. Sorry, but to me, the scary thing about birth is the interventions. Seeing as the US has one of the WORST health care records (almost dead last of all the industrialized countries), I see that trusting the medical industry is a big mistake. Except for emergency medicine, doctors in my opinion are just drug pushers and don't think for themselves.