Vent Post: Birth
I just got around to posting over at birthtrauma. I joined that community probably sometime in October, but finally felt the urge to post because I just finished watching "Nine Months." I've never seen the flick before, but I thought it was pretty good, especially considering it's a Huge Grant movie.
What stuck with me, though, wasn't that it was a romantic comedy or even that Hugh Grant was a completely childish narcissist who eventually reformed. I keep flashing to the last major scene of the movie, when Julienne Moore and Joan Cusack are in the delivery room and screaming their heads off. I'm sure a lot of labors are like that, of course, so that's fine. But it was more the sight of Grant falling over himself to make Robin Williams bring Moore's character pain medications. Williams, as the Russian doctor, says, "You don't want natural?" And Grant exclaims, "NO!"
The movie came out in the early 90's, so before the big push for reform in favor of natural birth. So, it was released back before we were informed on just how beneficial natural birth can be, when hospital trips and epidurals were just part of the package deal, and certainly the writers probably felt that the gimmick of having Grant and Williams faint in tandem at the sight of the needle was important to undercut the tension of labor. I get the relevance, I really do.
Like I'm wont to do, of course, I couldn't help but reflect on my own experience. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't see the epidural needle going into my back, because I'm sure I would have had a similar reaction. Of course, my situation differed from Moore's, in that I was told I could not receive the pitocin unless I consented to an epidural, and after 16 hours or so of back labor and no progress in my dilation, not receiving the pitocin was not an option. So epidural it was, though I was deeply conflicted about it because I had obviously wanted a natural labor.
Then I noticed how I was comparing our situations, and offering up explanations, as if I needed to justify why I had made the decision. Was I suggesting that Moore's character had been somehow less committed to being a good mother because she had opted for an epidural after what seemed like maybe two hours of actual pushing? Who in the hell was I to judge anyone, even a fictional character, for their birth choices? Particularly since I'd been on the receiving end of it?
I'll never forget that about a month after I had Sephie, I got struck down by a nasty cold. And I do mean nasty--it was bad enough that my in-laws sent me to that crazy prolotherapist doctor friend of theirs, the one with the poor bedside manner and four marriages behind him. In any case, while in the room receiving the treatment, the woman across from me and I began to talk. Somehow, the subject turned to Sephie's recent birth, and the woman chastising me for going to the hospital and receiving drugs. Despite having no idea who she was, I felt the need to defend myself to her, explaining the circumstances of what I had gone through, and Sephie's birth, the whole shebang. She stood adamantly by her assessment that I had been reckless, because her kids had also been born with the umbilical cords wrapped around their necks.
"Twice?" I asked. She answered in the affirmative, but I'll admit I didn't believe her. Still, even if she was right and her baby was fine, who was she to tell me I'd made a mistake? My daughter came out not breathing. Based on the research I've done, this is an incredibly rare occurrence in birth, but it doesn't change the fact it happened at her birth, and that's all the justification I need to know I made the right decision. Neither the drugs nor the hospital had anything to do with the cords doubled around Sephie's neck; it just happened. And I asked her if, in her world view, she felt I should have tried harder. She told me yes.
I stopped talking to her at that point. She had her mind made up, and I wasn't going to change it. But it was an interesting departure from what I had gone through while pregnant, when a number of folks told me I was out of my mind for wanting a natural birth and that I needed to be aware I was playing Russian roulette with my child's life by birthing in a tub. I've often demonstrated scorn against women for getting a C-section, because of their high prevalence in stark contrast to their low necessity.
B actually said he'd be against C-sections just for convenience, and I patently disagreed with him because I do see it as keystone issue to the larger dialog of women's rights. We should not be in the habit of telling women we know what is better for their bodies than they do. I'm reminded of the case in the headlines about the woman who was 23 weeks along, and had to give birth to her child after trying to obtain an abortion because the baby obviously had a birth defect that would keep it from living for more than a few hours. Because of state laws restricting abortion, she had to actually give birth less than two weeks later, and watch the child suffocate to death. How brutal.
What bugged me is how so many people are judging the woman for not going to a nearby state. The laws that prevent her from exercising her medical autonomy isn't the villain here, in their minds, she is, because she didn't drive to another state to have the procedure done. Never mind that perhaps she didn't have the money. She's also to blame because she has a history of miscarriages and she should have been willing to accept these possible consequences as a result of that history.
On a sociological level, and even psychological, I understand why we, women especially, judge each other for the choices we make attached to pregnancy, delivery, and parenting. We've been expertly conditioned by the patriarchy and the larger society to fight ourselves so we can't possibly band together to bring down the sexism once and for all. We have turncoats like Phyllis Schlafly earning a living doing exactly what she criticizes women for doing, for example, and codes that rewards us for judging rather than understanding.
But on an emotional level, I don't get it. I really try to avoid judging women for the decisions that they make because I'm committed to the idea that a person is a person if they have been birthed. So even if I'm not totally comfortable with the idea of having a society that pushes for "Cesareans on demand," I have to accept it in order to be consistent, and because any regression on individual liberties for women in that sphere has the potential to completely snowball into across-the-board regression of rights.po
I also don't know what judging gets me, or anyone else. P has admittedly been sort of my test case in this area. The details of H's birth always seem to change somewhat, but whereas I used to be quite harsh privately, I've come to accept that she had the right to make the choices that she did, and I need to avoid judging her for them. Am I somehow a better person because my labor was around 27 hours long and hers was just six? I don't think so, and I need to remain committed to this. Conversely, what did that woman at the prolotherapist's office get by telling me I'd endangered my child? I can't go back and wave a wand that keeps the cord from being doubled around Sephie's neck.
What I can do is assume every woman has done the research to decide on the birth that is right for them. And even if they haven't, keep from making an issue of it. How another woman ultimately births her child is her right, and the right to choose shouldn't be used to cherry pick which rights that entails. If we have the right to keep or end our pregnancies without judgment, so too do we possess the right to birth as we sit fit, and without judgment.
What stuck with me, though, wasn't that it was a romantic comedy or even that Hugh Grant was a completely childish narcissist who eventually reformed. I keep flashing to the last major scene of the movie, when Julienne Moore and Joan Cusack are in the delivery room and screaming their heads off. I'm sure a lot of labors are like that, of course, so that's fine. But it was more the sight of Grant falling over himself to make Robin Williams bring Moore's character pain medications. Williams, as the Russian doctor, says, "You don't want natural?" And Grant exclaims, "NO!"
The movie came out in the early 90's, so before the big push for reform in favor of natural birth. So, it was released back before we were informed on just how beneficial natural birth can be, when hospital trips and epidurals were just part of the package deal, and certainly the writers probably felt that the gimmick of having Grant and Williams faint in tandem at the sight of the needle was important to undercut the tension of labor. I get the relevance, I really do.
Like I'm wont to do, of course, I couldn't help but reflect on my own experience. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't see the epidural needle going into my back, because I'm sure I would have had a similar reaction. Of course, my situation differed from Moore's, in that I was told I could not receive the pitocin unless I consented to an epidural, and after 16 hours or so of back labor and no progress in my dilation, not receiving the pitocin was not an option. So epidural it was, though I was deeply conflicted about it because I had obviously wanted a natural labor.
Then I noticed how I was comparing our situations, and offering up explanations, as if I needed to justify why I had made the decision. Was I suggesting that Moore's character had been somehow less committed to being a good mother because she had opted for an epidural after what seemed like maybe two hours of actual pushing? Who in the hell was I to judge anyone, even a fictional character, for their birth choices? Particularly since I'd been on the receiving end of it?
I'll never forget that about a month after I had Sephie, I got struck down by a nasty cold. And I do mean nasty--it was bad enough that my in-laws sent me to that crazy prolotherapist doctor friend of theirs, the one with the poor bedside manner and four marriages behind him. In any case, while in the room receiving the treatment, the woman across from me and I began to talk. Somehow, the subject turned to Sephie's recent birth, and the woman chastising me for going to the hospital and receiving drugs. Despite having no idea who she was, I felt the need to defend myself to her, explaining the circumstances of what I had gone through, and Sephie's birth, the whole shebang. She stood adamantly by her assessment that I had been reckless, because her kids had also been born with the umbilical cords wrapped around their necks.
"Twice?" I asked. She answered in the affirmative, but I'll admit I didn't believe her. Still, even if she was right and her baby was fine, who was she to tell me I'd made a mistake? My daughter came out not breathing. Based on the research I've done, this is an incredibly rare occurrence in birth, but it doesn't change the fact it happened at her birth, and that's all the justification I need to know I made the right decision. Neither the drugs nor the hospital had anything to do with the cords doubled around Sephie's neck; it just happened. And I asked her if, in her world view, she felt I should have tried harder. She told me yes.
I stopped talking to her at that point. She had her mind made up, and I wasn't going to change it. But it was an interesting departure from what I had gone through while pregnant, when a number of folks told me I was out of my mind for wanting a natural birth and that I needed to be aware I was playing Russian roulette with my child's life by birthing in a tub. I've often demonstrated scorn against women for getting a C-section, because of their high prevalence in stark contrast to their low necessity.
B actually said he'd be against C-sections just for convenience, and I patently disagreed with him because I do see it as keystone issue to the larger dialog of women's rights. We should not be in the habit of telling women we know what is better for their bodies than they do. I'm reminded of the case in the headlines about the woman who was 23 weeks along, and had to give birth to her child after trying to obtain an abortion because the baby obviously had a birth defect that would keep it from living for more than a few hours. Because of state laws restricting abortion, she had to actually give birth less than two weeks later, and watch the child suffocate to death. How brutal.
What bugged me is how so many people are judging the woman for not going to a nearby state. The laws that prevent her from exercising her medical autonomy isn't the villain here, in their minds, she is, because she didn't drive to another state to have the procedure done. Never mind that perhaps she didn't have the money. She's also to blame because she has a history of miscarriages and she should have been willing to accept these possible consequences as a result of that history.
On a sociological level, and even psychological, I understand why we, women especially, judge each other for the choices we make attached to pregnancy, delivery, and parenting. We've been expertly conditioned by the patriarchy and the larger society to fight ourselves so we can't possibly band together to bring down the sexism once and for all. We have turncoats like Phyllis Schlafly earning a living doing exactly what she criticizes women for doing, for example, and codes that rewards us for judging rather than understanding.
But on an emotional level, I don't get it. I really try to avoid judging women for the decisions that they make because I'm committed to the idea that a person is a person if they have been birthed. So even if I'm not totally comfortable with the idea of having a society that pushes for "Cesareans on demand," I have to accept it in order to be consistent, and because any regression on individual liberties for women in that sphere has the potential to completely snowball into across-the-board regression of rights.po
I also don't know what judging gets me, or anyone else. P has admittedly been sort of my test case in this area. The details of H's birth always seem to change somewhat, but whereas I used to be quite harsh privately, I've come to accept that she had the right to make the choices that she did, and I need to avoid judging her for them. Am I somehow a better person because my labor was around 27 hours long and hers was just six? I don't think so, and I need to remain committed to this. Conversely, what did that woman at the prolotherapist's office get by telling me I'd endangered my child? I can't go back and wave a wand that keeps the cord from being doubled around Sephie's neck.
What I can do is assume every woman has done the research to decide on the birth that is right for them. And even if they haven't, keep from making an issue of it. How another woman ultimately births her child is her right, and the right to choose shouldn't be used to cherry pick which rights that entails. If we have the right to keep or end our pregnancies without judgment, so too do we possess the right to birth as we sit fit, and without judgment.