Some Bold Plans

I've been researching places to give birth. The back seat of a taxi is looking like a better and better option. Just kidding.

Actually, after talking to a couple of hospitals in the area and touring a local birthing center, I am leaning toward the latter. It's basically an old farmhouse with three bedrooms - you show up when you're in labor, and a midwife checks on you periodically, and you have the baby all by yourself. The advantage is, no interventions, no pushy doctors, no fetal monitoring, no IV drips, no C-section. I'm worried to the point of obsession about being forced into a C-section. I know my body can do this on its own, given time. The down side of the birthing center is, no pain relief. They have hot showers, but no epidurals. When I told my friend that I was thinking of having natural childbirth there, she said, "You're brave." I don't think of it as brave though. I think of it as my only choice if I want to avoid being sliced up (now, and again for any child I might have in future).

I'm a little frustrated that it has to be this way. Despite the widespread availability of modern forms of pain relief, I'm going to have to do things the old, nineteenth-century way (actually, the way of all the previous centuries), suffering through every contraction, just because hospitals are so hyper and insane about interventions. I know that only 8-10% of women "need" a C-section (because their pelvises are too small, or because the presentation is wrong). But the hospitals in my area have a rate of 40%. Most of the time, the C-sections are given simply because doctors are tired of waiting and want to speed things up. It frustrates me that I have to hide at a birthing center just to escape that. Why can't it be my choice to labor as long as I want? Why can't I be the one to decide, instead of a doctor who doesn't even know me?

Anyhoo, so my job for the next six months is to psych myself up for natural childbirth. On days when I'm feeling good, it seems very doable. All those mantras about women's bodies being designed for it ring loud and clear. But then I stub my toe or hurt myself in some other way, and think, "Ahhh! I don't like pain! Make it stop!" and labor seems completely terrifying.

I also think I'd better keep my plans to myself. I just know that if I tell anyone, they will cheerfully say, "Hoo boy, you are crazy," and start relating tales of agony and try to convince me to go to the hospital. Even if it's really that bad, I don't need to hear about it. I need to be told, firmly and repeatedly, that it is fine and I can do it. "Si, se puede!"