my mother-in-law even told me that i would feel empty afterward, not having done the one thing i was made for

Great to have supportive in-laws, isn’t it…
Anyway, even if having children really were the one thing you were made for (and I don’t think it is), you did just that, didn’t you? You brought a child into the world, and the fact that you could have given birth without surgery doesn’t make any difference on that account. And you didn’t choose an obscure or dangerous birthing method either, so it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but yours, your husband’s and your doctor’s.

#1: children are worth it.

#2: i agree that all women/families should be able to have all birthing methods avaliable to them, even the madicalized ones.

#3: who knows?

Or you hire a midwife as soon as you become pregnant. She does all your check-ups, and you just go to a doctor’s office for the ultrasounds. I found that much less stressful and more personal. All German health insurances cover the costs.

Or you can do what I did and hire a team of three midwives who works with your local hospital. This cost me about € 250. The team will do your antenatal care, doing turns so you’ll get to know all three of them. You’ve got the choice between a homebirth or a normal hospital birth. If you’re planning a homebirth, you’ll still have the option of chickening out at the last moment and going into a hospital. Either way —AND THIS IS THE AWESOME BIT— your midwife will go with you. She’s authorized to go into the labour room with you and do her job there, using all the facilities and being fully in charge (so there won’t be another midwife supervising her or something; there’ll just be the doctor called in, as usual). She’ll stay with you the entire time. If your labour lasts for a very long time, one of the other two team midwives just takes over from her.

I’ve done that for my 2nd birth and it was so worth the money (about € 250). That way there isn’t this strict black-and-white thing of hospital vs home birth. You can choose one option and then chicken out, or you can go into hospital and still have some of the advantages of a home birth, i.e.:

1) You already know and trust your midwife. That takes one element of surprise out of an already scary experience. It’s like you’re friends. Very reassuring. A birth is over much more quickly if you can relax. Your midwife will know you very well, including stuff you find relaxing (or NOT, more importantly), and she’ll know whether you or the baby have any medical conditions or hangups that need to be taken into account.

2) Unlike a hospital midwife, “your” midwife won’t have to monitor many births simultaneously. She’ll stay with you from start to finish, and then some. So she’ll have enough time to help you relax and breathe etc. That’s of enormous help.

3) Among people I know, we’ve had one birth gone wrong because the medical staff didn’t see the warning signs in time (the baby’s severely disabled now). So I found it very reassuring to know that someone would be with us all the time.

Of course all that costs extra, about € 200 to 300. I don’t understand why the medical insurance doesn’t cover it. Home births are much cheaper for them than hospital births. If women generally had access to this type of service, surely more of us would feel they can plan a home birth.

…higher infant mortality—it’s pleasing to think it’s a simple solution like midwifery. More likely is lack of health insurance means a lot of women don’t get decent prenatal care.

That’s what I was thinking, that an Europeans are just generally more healthy then Americans, probably because of the health care thing, but after being in Europe, I’m going to also say it’s because of all the walking.

schrödinger’s cat:

I’ll take your word on the childbirth pain thing- I think I’ll just bypass the whole process. While I’ve always loved little kids, I think I’m one that’ll be a better aunt or neighborhood mom than actual mom.

Lisa KS:

I don’t know why the mother-goddess, sisterhood bonding thing makes me grit my teeth (aside from Fantasy novels, I’ll accept it there the same way I’ll accept Magic). I don’t think you can HAVE an unnatural experience: your experiences are yours alone. Now, if you had a cesearan that you didn’t want, I could see that as being a BAD experience, but you’re not missing out on the “natural” experience or “real” experience.

True, doctors wash their hands now; and maybe some midwives do force women to do things that they don’t want. But I know the vast majority of doctors do make women lie on a bed in a fashion that goes against both anatomy and gravity, and that can’t be comfortable.

As just a general note, can I mention how very cool it is to have a blog post that has people actually staying on topic? This is very cool to me.

Hear hear.

I think men are so used to being “the experts” that it doesn’t even enter their heads that there’s something they can’t be experts about. Being reminded that some areas are out of bounds, that they won’t get to pontificate, and that all they can do is listen and take notes - they seem to be taken aback. As if, on a scale that measures your authority and goes from -10 to 10, they’re used to being 3 all the time and come to see this as the norm, as “their” zero. And once you tell them that their authority is 0, instead of being reduced to a neutral position, they’re feeling like you’re knocking them straight into a minus area - telling them they’re being idiots or something.

Doctors nowadays are very good about handwashing, and a midwife may try to force you to walk around and/or squat when you are totally positive you feel better lying down.

I am a huge fan of painkilling drugs during childbirth personally. In general I believe every woman should be fully educated about the various kinds offered, their effects on both her and the fetus, also educated about the stark reality of a drug-free childbirth, and that she should never be pressured one way or the other.

Midwives don’t actually show up any sooner than the doctor does, but once they’re there, they do stay by your side a whole heck of a lot more.

It is far from a foregone conclusion that if you get an epidural, you will also be given oxytocin, and that avoiding an epidural will prevent them from giving you oxytocin as well.

Any mention of episiotomies in that film?

#1 Cause we have no idea how awful it’s going to be til it’s too late.
#2 Every time some woman who’s had a caesarian starts babbling about how she’s missed out on the true experience of giving birth and her maternity is forever incomplete thereby, my brain shuts off.
#3 I think some men can’t process that there could be anything that a woman could do better on the physical plane without his direction, even something that literally never and cannot be performed by a man, resulting in sensations and physical activities that a man can never experience.

I hate the idea of having a regular hospital birth where doctors tend to do things for their convenience or to protect them from lawsuits or whatever as opposed to what is best for *me*. The idea of being bullied into interventions is terrifying, it’s even worse when you hear that you might not be informed at all before they happen. I don’t want to be rushed, I don’t want to not be allowed food and water while I do something exhausting (it’s called labor for a reason) and I don’t want anyone to act like I only have one option when in fact I have more than that. I want to be respected as a person while I am in the hospital.

On the other hand, glorifying the idea of a perfect birth experience is both, as you said, too crunchy for me (”natural” anything is not always better and I wish people would stop insisting it was) and sets up these high expectations that women will feel shitty about if they don’t meet. I know I’m not failing anyone if I take pain meds. Not myself, not my baby and certainly not anyone else who feels like they might have a stake in the birth. I don’t want anyone who has a c-section, necessary or not, to feel like they missed out on this Amazing, Mystical Birth Experience that the home birth movement is pushing. Motherhood is fetishized enough and women don’t need another thing to feel bad about.

Hopefully I can find a no-nonsense midwife and give birth in a hospital and avoid these issues. Whatever, I’ve got at least 5 years before I need to find a solution. In the meantime it just pisses me off to no end. Makes me stabby.

Birthing pain isn’t like normal pain. Part of what makes pain so scary is: it’s meaningless, beyond our control, without any breaks, and we don’t know if and when it will ever go away. Birthing pain is different. It’s not continuous. Once the baby’s out, the pain is GONE. To some extent we can influence our pain (breathing, positions, relaxation etc). It’s pain with a purpose: less like getting mugged, more like lugging a very large wardrobe up the staircase all by yourself. Your pain makes your body produce some painkilling hormones, and those help. Best thing: they enter your baby’s bloodstream as well. (So at least SOMEONE’s happy.)

But whenever you see a women giving birth in the movies*, it isn’t like that, is it? The woman is never someone who actively DOES something. She’s a victim of a terrible attack of pain. One moment she’s walking along singing to herself, the next: SCREAMING her head off, having to be rescued and rushed to a hospital. There, she’s either unconscious (=Caesarean) or just screaming and screaming and screaming. Or there’s this mysterious Something happening behind closed doors, with the woman’s friends worrying themselves sick outside. Like she’s having surgery done or been in a car crash. The fact that she’s DOING something gets blanked out. The stress is more on the woman as victim, and on birth as something dangerous and horrific that needs monitoring and rescue work (often done by men).

*in the ones I’ve seen