Yep, you heard me right. Harlee Dennis Papenberg will be entering into a safe, warm, comforting environment free of drugs, strangers' hands, bright lights, or any kind of medical interventions. The first hands to touch him will be his mom and dad's, and their skin will be the main surface he'll be in contact with for the first hours of his life outside the womb. Nothing will be rubbed into his eyes, his heels will not be pricked, he'll be left completely in the care of his parents, and our privacy will be respected as we settle in as a family.
I am so excited I could just jump up and down... if jumping up and down were a comfortable thing to do right now! So just pretend :)
If you've read my previous posts, you've joined me a little bit on my journey of frustration with modern medicine, doctors offices, rude nurses, and unnecessary routines. Plus listened to, if not shared in, my frustration of being treated like a number and a medical patient rather than a woman experiencing one of the most life-changing, pivotal transformations in her existence - which happens to be a completely natural course of events rather than a medical situation.
I've questioned for awhile why babies need to be born in hospitals. Babies who have no real issues that need to be addressed, being born to mothers who are, for the most part, healthy. Aren't hospitals for sick people? Or broken people? Or dying people? I'm not sick or broken and I'm certainly not dying... And according to this rambunctious fetus in me, he's certainly not sick or dying either. Hasn't birth been a natural part of, well, nature, since the dawn of humanity? That was, like, millions of years ago! I'm pretty sure there weren't hospitals back then... and I'm pretty sure birthing a baby now is the same as birthing a baby was millions of years ago. Except now we know a little more about what's going on in that ever growing belly we pregnant women sport for nine months.
And since that information is available, I decided to get my hands on it. What
is going on inside of me, exactly? And why is it all of a sudden necessary to have a baby in an environment where people normally go to get cured or fixed of some problem, when having a baby is not something that needs to be cured or fixed because it's really not a problem? The human race made it this far, and it started millions of years ago by women birthing the next generations into existence, and doing so in caves and fields, and then after that in the comfort of their own homes. Obviously those births worked just fine by not happening in a hospital, otherwise, well, we wouldn't be here today would we?
Thank goodness for modern medicine in a lot of cases, yes - I've seen first hand that not all pregnancies and births can be perfect, and sometimes things go wrong and women are faced with situations where having the availability of a good hospital and knowledgeable doctors is a true blessing. But that's just when hospitals are necessary - when things go wrong. Birth, in its true, natural form, is not wrong. The human race's increased knowledge is also a true blessing, because unlike our ancestors who started out by having their mothers or members of their community being the only people there to assist a birth, we now have people who specialize in this truly amazing experience, who know what's going on in the human body and how to handle any minor complications that may arise, and can provide trustworthy assistance through the whole experience. "But isn't that a doctor?" you might ask. Sure, doctors are knowledgeable, but the problem with doctors is that most of them forget that this is a very personal , life-changing experience for the woman and the family, and they also have gotten to a point where their fear of lawsuits is greater than their desire to give the pregnant woman the personal experience she deserves and desires. As you've read, I experienced this first-hand, and a lot of other people have in some way too, I'm sure. My biggest problem with doctors is that the whole person is not being treated. Just the "issue" at hand in its physical form. The whole person includes the spirit and emotions and mentality of this person too, not just what they're physically experiencing. And so many doctors use their scare tactics - "Oh, better get the H1N1 vaccine, women have died or lost their babies because of the flu!" or "We need to issue this test, even though you don't show any signs or symptoms of having what we're testing you for, because if you DO have it your baby could die!" blah blah blah. Does hearing this crap really make you feel good? It doesn't make me feel good. Aren't we supposed to make this a happy event, and stay positive the whole way through? I want to, apparently I'm alone in this for some reason...
So rather than a doctor, I wanted a midwife. As you know, I found a group practicing in Maryville. Unfortunately they're all affiliated with Anderson Hospital and work under supervision of the OB-GYNs up there, so in essence I'm still having to go to a doctor and birth my baby in a hospital. Only plus-side is that the midwife was the kind of person who was supportive of the natural course of events a birth takes, because it's a natural event. But knowing that there were other people I'd have to deal with, coming in and out of the room while I'm trying to manage labor, with attitudes like the nurse had that I dealt with during the GTT incident, I wasn't satisfied.
Also, I got a bit of an education, because of another question I had. Why is it that so many women I know went into their pregnancy and then into labor saying "I want to do this drug-free, I want the experience of a natural childbirth, I'm going to avoid the epidural!" and ultimately end up getting it, or worse, rushed into a c-section? Why aren't they able to keep to their word? What was the final breaking point? What do I need to do differently so that I CAN stay true to my word and have a natural childbirth?
So this is what I learned: being in a comfortable environment makes a world of difference. Going into labor with a positive attitude and a trust that everything is going to go well and knowing that this will pass, and when it does you will have your new bundle of joy in your arms and everything you experienced will be worth it, can really help make labor smooth. The hormones coursing through you to create contractions are free to flow, and the process is able to continue on. Enter any stress hormones into the picture, and they actually counteract the job the labor hormones are supposed to be doing. These stress hormones can come from fears you may have, or doctors and nurses bustling around ruining your focus on breathing through contractions or saying things that bring about fears or discomforts, or even routine exams or fetal monitoring or anything else happening to clutter up a what should be peaceful environment. Labor can slow to an excruciating crawl if mom doesn't feel content and at peace! This is usually when doctors want to administer Pitocin to speed things up a bit, and where you're faced with a choice of either going back on your word of wanting to have a drug-free birth, or go ahead and take it so you can "speed things up". Well really this just creates a lot of unnatural contractions. Your body falls out of sync, and this isn't the greatest thing to do to your baby, either. If your cervix isn't ready to open, these contractions are going to be very painful. This is usually when the epidural happens. And the epidural slows everything down. Not to mention, these drugs ARE going into your baby's body - that placenta is still in-tact and while it's still there doing its job, anything going into mom can go into baby. And I've been told all throughout my pregnancy to avoid drugs..... I'm still not entirely sure why they're okay at this point, but whatever. That's just my opinion. So now you need more Pitocin to get things speeding along again, and this is usually when you see a lot of fetal distress happening, or changes in mom's blood pressure, and things still aren't moving along fast enough, and when this happens, doctors like to suggest c-section. And it's labeled "Failure to Progress".
So, after reading this in multiple places, I realized if I want to achieve a natural birth, I need to be content in my environment. I know that's not going to happen in a hospital! I don't want to deal with nurses and doctors coming in and out, and I especially don't want to have to worry about arguing with any of them if they decide to do something that I feel is unnecessary. Besides, hospitals remind me of all the times I've been there to visit people who weren't well, and I don't want those memories associated with the ones I'm creating of my child's birth. And on top of that, I've had enough bad experiences with doctor's that I can't say I completely trust them, and I would be nervous being in their "care" throughout my birthing experience. This is a personal feeling, though - just a little something extra to feed my fire.
So we found a group of midwives in St. Louis that specialize in home births. Since home births are illegal in Illinois, we'll be traveling to a birthing facility they have set up across the river for people in similar situations as me, which is equipped with all the necessary amenities anyone would need for any possible complication that could arise.
Peace of mind at last!! These women share in all my beliefs and feelings about birth, have seen for themselves how interruptions and the hustle and bustle of hospitals can bring labors to a screeching halt, and treat me like a real person with real feelings rather than a "patient".
My favorite aspect of this whole thing: Making the baby was an intimate, private experience, so birthing the baby should be an intimate, private experience as well.
How true. And how beautiful, to have the privilege of experiencing it this way. I am the only person I know at this point who can say I am truly excited to experience labor and birth. I don't expect it to be a breeze, of course, but I am definitely ready to embrace what my body is capable of doing, and was built to do.
d
-s
