I get so upset with mainstream!

[freestyler]

I just need to vent someplace where people will understand! I HATE Mainstream mentality, especially regarding birthing!!

I have an old friend, we've known each other for most of our lives, and she was due in August with her first. She had mainstream docs, and I was worried for her, that she would end up sectioned for NO REASON. I wrote her a letter with some non-mainstream ideas about birthing, including "don't let them induce you the second you go over 40 weeks, because average first pregnancies are 41 weeks..." and a few other things that I thought were really important to help her avoid the medical establishment CRAP. I tried to say it all tactfully, but I thought it was important to be the one lone voice in her otherwise mainstream world, and she is very mainstream herself.

Anyway, it turns out, she got induced at 41 weeks, at which point baby and mom were of course doing fine and baby was just still growing. Result? Intervention-land, and her ending up being sectioned for what would otherwise probably have been an easier and more natural outcome for her and her baby. In other words, the doctors went in there and screwed around with a healthy pregnancy, created all sorts of problems, and then rushed to her aid as the saviors we all know they are (ha ha ha)....and she is Grateful to them. OMG. It just makes my blood boil.

Shouldn't there be a law against this?

Exactly one week ago, my fourth was delivered by c-section, but it was a life-saving surgery that followed a five-day, natural, drug and intervention free labor, but one that unfortunately went funky towards the end. There were complications that kept my baby from coming out, but they were NOT problems caused by doctors. I chose a doctor that is the only one within a 100-mile radius here to truly SUPPORT women in natural birthing.

I wish my friend had been careful choosing her doc, or had gone a non-mainstream route altogether. Ugh. Just needed to vent. I love NOT hearing about induction in this group, or about keeping newborns on a feeding "schedule" (another goodie my friend is doing, ugh), or about how great all sorts of interventions are. I love this group. Thank you for being a voice of sanity in a world gone insane.

[Mama to 4]

Oh, man, that sucks so much and the irony of you both getting a c-sec----I am so sorry.

it is very very hard for me to deal with the mainstream, and i find myself SO toungue-tied, because it took me like 10 years of research and obsessing and personal growth to get where i am today about "stuff", i just dont have the energy to try and "educate" everyone i meet-- i know i should or something but i am just too--tired?? I am 38 weeks pg maybe that has something to do with it.

I used to spend enourmous amounts of energy on trying to help my friends and family with stuff like this (birth, breastfeeding, family living, raising your own kids, homeschool, food, earth friendly stuff blabla bla) and it never ever worked and i would be all sad and dejected and frustrated--- so for us, for now, we are just doing our family thing, and on the rare occasion when someone shows interest (aka asks a retarded question LOL) I just light up and give 'em WAY TMI and they usually are like ohhhhh uhh huh and thats that.

I dont know if any of this helps, but I guess you might need to use MDC as a place to find like minded people and save your mental energy right now for your baby.

I have this feeling that when my babies are older and i dont feel so vulnerable and these subjects arent so fresh and immediately relevant to my life I hope i will find the gumption to help people more. Even if they dont want it!!!!

[allgirls]

You wouldn't believe how many people I know who have the exact same story...

as soon as I hear "induction" I cringe...and 90% of the time it's c-section.

[lovnbnhome]

I hear ya! I have learned that there isn't much I can say to convince my friends about natural living. I became a Bradley Method childbirth instructor and now they are realizing a bit how important natural birth is to me and dh and should be for all. They are just getting a bit curious about it now that I've invested myself into it...(I guess I wasn't invested enough before?!?!) Anyway...it's frustrating and horrifying to see what the mainstream will let others do to them!

[freestyler]

Thank you for your responses everyone. Glad to know I'm not the only one who feels passionate on these things!! Incidentally, I don't think my friendship with that woman is going to weather this very well. I mean, differences of opinion are healthy, but not in this case! How can we share experiences about parenting, when mine revolve around co-snoozing and breastfeeding on demand, and hers revolve around getting her one-month-old "on a schedule"/letting him cry it out, and giving all power to their all-holy Mainstream Pediatricians? Good grief. Our friendship had been faring badly since I started having kids anyway, because she's always firing unsolicited parenting criticism my way! Without having kids herself!

Anyway, I'm so grateful for the years I lived in Minneapolis, because the alternative community there is huge and thriving---the whole city seems like one big alternative community!---and it was such a healthy place to start a family. We learned about treasures like doulas, organic food co-ops in every neighborhood, sustainable living, waldorf, homeschooling, cloth diapering, and so on. A very good city for families. Now we're in Southern California.....ya wanna talk about Mainstream? Ugh. It is SCARY over here. You have to really search to find a good natural tribe to hang out with.

[erth mama]

I sort of forgot about mainstream for a little while there, where I live most people assume I am having a homebirth with the midwives from the area. So I was really surprised yesterday when I was out running errands and a woman with a tiny baby about a week old walked right up to me and grasped my shoulder, staring into my face and said" get the epidural!".
It completely threw me off guard and took the rest of the afternoon to remeber my mantras and get back on the good vibes wagon.
We are strong. Our bodies are meant for this. When we are ready our bodies will open and our babies will be born.

[freestyler]

Wow Erth Mama, that woman was so rude and presumptuous! She probably sensed your natural and earthy approach somehow, and felt threatened by you, I'm guessing, or she was just an idiot. Maybe she was still under the effects of her epidural herself---did you ask her that LOL? But god how depressing. I know there are cases when epidurals (or other interventions) are used for the true well-being of mom and baby, but those cases surely are few and far between. Damn that woman for upsetting half your day!! That is what happened to me early in this last pregnancy---I went to consultations with MEDwives and would be freaked out for days afterwards. I was SO SO SO relieved and thrilled when I found my non-mainstream and unbelievably skilled OB. What a great day that was.

[Awaken]

Originally Posted by erth mama

So I was really surprised yesterday when I was out running errands and a woman with a tiny baby about a week old walked right up to me and grasped my shoulder, staring into my face and said" get the epidural!".

Ugh, how totally presumptuous and inappropriate!

count me in on being so sick of mainstream- people just throwing their lives into the hands of OB's and pediatricians who don't necessarily have ANY knowledge of how a NORMAL pregnancy and baby operates! I totally dringe when I hear that someone has their newborn sleep training or is supplementing with formula 'b/c my ped is a big believer in that'- uhhhh....WHY should that matter??

And my cousin just HAD to be induced b/c her baby was 9#, and of course we all know it isn't possible to have a 9# baby naturally! (No c sect though surprisingly!) And so many friends who have had to have c sect b/c of breeches- of course sometimes that is necessary but they didn't even try anything to prevent it- just automatically scheduled the c/s without even doing chiro, yoga, etc or trying to find a pracititoner who would deliver them vaginally!

Uggghhhhh, I do find it so hard to bear people not being educated on their own health! Mostly I just grin and bear it unless I feel I can truly help the person or offer some helpful resources- but I way stress out about it and think about it for days whenever I have one of those conversations!

[RyvreWillow]

i think about this all the time, because the area i live in SUCKS for ANYTHING natural. My god, i have to drive 1 hour out of town just to buy whole-wheat pasta...it's that bad!!!

My OB (if you've read anything i've posted about him, sorry for being redundant) is an IDIOT who treats me like i know absolutely nothing about my own body or birth, even though i've done it twice already, and his eyes glaze over into the most condecending expression when i say something as simple as "no thanks, i do not think i need an induction just because my baby is "big"; i've birthed two "big" babies already with no problems..." UGH!!! i want to slap him!!! And he used to share his office with a midwife (the only one who was within 2.5 hours, and ironically she retired just months before i got pregnant)...well, up until now i was really bummed that i couldn't have her deliver my baby, but now that i think about it, she probably wasn't any better anyway, being associated with that ass!!! GAH!!! you've got me ranting now, LOLOLOL!!!

[freestyler]

RyvreWillow, I feel for you!! I wish you could have fabulous all-natural supportive care from someone totally skilled and enlightened. Arrgh, I hope everything will still go beautifully in spite of the asses in that office. Didn't your doc get hit by a car? Didn't you mention that he might not be able to be at your birth because of that? I laughed when you posted that, that's how bad I am! But anyway, having to drive like huge distances for a loaf of real bread....ugh. Ask your friends to get you a bread machine, and then you can order King Arthur or other flours by mail! That'd be awesome. But I know, it doesn't solve the larger problem of being surrounded by unenlightened people and places. That's really hard.

[RyvreWillow]

Oh yeah! i never did update on the doc-getting-hit-by-a-car thing...actually, it's even better, lol, he got hit by a street sweeper in the parking garage--you know, those things that travel at something like 5 mph, lol. Apparently he was talking on his cell phone (standing in the middle of the parking lot), and he didn't hear it coming, and it backed over him. Real observant. Anyway, he just got banged up and bruised a bit *sigh* so he's fine.

i'm determined to have a good birth in spite of the doc and his staff, even if i have to kill them all