The things we thought we’d never do

Bionic's post from a while back got me thinking...

Here is the first question I didn’t have to think about when I found out that I was pregnant and that the pregnancy would, despite my many worries, in all likelihood result in a baby: What kind of birth do you want?

While it was not always so, by the time I got there, the answer was imminently clear: I wanted to feel every twinge of it. I had my reasons—chief among them: control and fear. Now I recognize that these might not be the noble reasons you would associate with “natural childbirth” so while we’re gliding by that phrase let me just say, I don’t believe in “natural childbirth” unless you happen to be in a field under a full moon or something.

“Natural” implies not just unmedicated, but unmediated. And our world of fetal monitoring, cervix checks and isolettes just does not have much room in it for “natural childbirth.” “Natural childbirth” mostly happens in countries with terrible medical infrastructure where women suffer and die in far greater numbers than necessary, or are cast out of their societies altogether after the pain of stillbirth because of obstetric fistulas or worse. “Natural childbirth” is a misleading and romanticized term that hides reality like a blob of Vaseline smeared across a camera lens. You can make of the blurry shapes what you will but you will never see what was actually there. Not that there are not homebirths and places liek Ina May's Farm here, but those are by far the exception-- and neither was a realistic option for me.

Anyway. As I was saying.

Fear and control. Control and fear. Two of the same thing, actually. I was—am—afraid of losing control over my body and my wants. I was afraid of goinbg into the hospital and being railroaded into a series of procedures that I didn’t want. Fetal monitoring. Epidurals. Pitocin. Clocks ticking. Nurses bossing. Doctors chastising. My plan was to stay away as long as I feasibly could, because I was much more afraid of the hospital than of the pain. The other side of that is that I do have an unusually high pain tolerance and a quirky way of processing pain. Case in point: when I was racked with debilitating contractions for hours and the doula asked me—as I was gasping to catch my breath from the last one—what my pain level was, I considered for a moment, then said, “Eight”—because I could bear the pain. The definition of ten, which I will probably never experience, would be unbearable pain, inconceivable pain. Self-immolation: that would be a ten. Napalm. And while my contractions were "rip-roaring" (as the midwife termed them), and pushing was DEFINITELY a nine, I could bear it.

And also, a part of me, a small, incredibly stubborn part, wanted the pain. To know what that was like. To have the full range of sensation in labor and birth, just because. Just because I could. Because I might not do this again. Because I had the option to with the safety net of opting out if it became too much.  That safety net was, ultimately as much a part of the experience as the pain itself.  I knew I had a choice and that every moment I was making one.  If it had become unbearable and the equation made the pain worse than the possible loss of control, yes, of course I would have chosen an epidural.

All that said, the hand-wringing and moralizing that goes along with birth plans and birthing classes and childbirth preparation books…it all honestly seems like a load of crap in retrospect.

What I learned from my birthing class? Never to commit to anything at 7 on a weekday evening because you will end up grabbing a Power bBr and calling it dinner and getting very sugar-crashy and grumpy by the end of the two hours, especially when they make you hold ice, (like that is anything like labor at all!) And that all those so-called "pain management" techniques were not worth the notebook paper I scribbled them on when it came to actual labor.

What I learned from the childbirth preparation books? That some people like to squat. For me, that felt like splitting in two. Ditto baths, showers, etc. Some people like it. I happened to hate it as labor advanced. Also: annoying people couch the pain of labor in new agey euphemisms, like “rushes” and “sensations” when what they mean to say is “holy mother of hell that really freaking hurts!”

Finally, I learned birth plans are useless. What you need is a supportive partner who knows how to say, “Yes, dear,” a doula who knows the midwife/OB and the hospital where you deliver, your insurance card and pre-registration papers. Everything else is a waste of everyone’s time.

I did not expect labor to hurt as much as it did—I did not expect to be the woman clutching at the wall and screaming as a contraction overtook me on the way to L&D. But there is no way to describe, anticipate, ameliorate or even remember that kind of pain. It fills your whole being until you are nothing but the feeling itself. I am glad I experienced it, because I didn’t do enough drugs when I was younger and I crave mind-altering experiences that are more befitting a woman of my age. I would do it again because it didn’t kill me the first time and in the end I think I got something out of having that experience, even if it is just to say, every time I look at the growing boy, “Damn, and I thought he was big when he came out!”

But that’s all it was and is: an experience that I chose to have a certain way. And while I could choose to have a root canal without pain relief I’d rather not. I think anyone who feels the same about unmedicated birth—she’d rather not—is making exactly that kind of choice, stating her preference not an identity or a moral standing.