WARNING:
THERE ARE MEDICAL ASPECTS OF THIS STORY THAT THE READER MAY FIND
GROSS
Also this is really long...
I
like telling stories. I've done a lot of that in my volunteer
spiritual activities. I think I'm good at it. I took a course in
Story Telling from Adam Wade at the Magnet Theater. Adam is
distinguished by having won the Moth Story Slam many times.
This
was my story for the class show of that course, the story of the
birth of my second child
Adam
told me that he thought I was good enough to tell a story at the
Moth. I went to the Moth website. I thought of submitting, but I
never did. I've gone to that site several times and never submitted
any story, even though a number of story worthy things have happened
to me.
There
was a complex emotional history. I took the story telling course the first time in
2013. That course was interrupted by my cancer diagnosis. I had
wanted to tell the story of the birth of my first child ,not my
second child. Due to the diagnosis I had to drop the course. The
Magnet normally doesn't give refunds, but, given the seriousness of
the health crisis, they told me I could take the course later.
I
was also taking a sketch writing course at that time. I technically
finished that course, because I had enough classes, and only missed
the last two. I did write a rant-sketch about the cancer diagnosis
experience and submitted it to that class, even though I couldn't get
to the final classes.
The
cancer was ovarian -- connected with the reproductive system. I had
surgery and chemo.
Somehow
there was trauma surrounding getting around to finishing the course and the story of the first birth.
It took me 2 years to get back to the course. This was not due to my
physical health. It was due to emotional issues. It was only when I
went to a class show for the class, when a man I had a crush on was
telling a story, that I finally was even willing to look at Adam.
But gradually I got willing to go back and finish the course.
Even
then I couldn't bring myself to tell
the story of the birth of my first child, so I went with the birth of
the second child. Both were eventful, but the story of the second
child was simpler, more focused, easier to organize.
The
class limited the stories to 8 minutes. The Moth limits them to 5
minutes. I understand. You don't want to be listening to someone
drone on and on forever. Hemingway said that if you could tell the
same story in 1/10 the space you would tell it 10 times as well. I'm
not sure that's entirely true, but there's certainly some truth in
it.
I
guess I've never wanted to be constrained to 5 minutes to tell my
stories, certainly not the story of the birth of my first child.
Yet, recently, I went to a more minor story slam, sponsored by the
Randolph Foundation in Randolph, NH, and I told a story -- a
different story -- in FOUR minutes.
I
managed to compress my lifetime of experiences in Randolph, NH into
four minutes, a much longer story than the birth of my first child.
And,
yet, the story of the birth of my first child remains untold, so far
as I can tell in my records. I want to do it. I feel it's
important. It has to do with home birth. I believe strongly in home
birth. I want to tell the story -- and yet still there is this
resistance to compressing it into five or even eight minute..
I
thought, perhaps, that this story would be best told in writing, on
my blog, where I can take as long as I please. No one need read it,
but at least I would have told it -- perhaps not so well as I would
have told it 27 years ago when it happened, but as well as I can
remember now.
Somewhere
i have a handwritten account of the birth itself, somewhere in some
paper file -- but I don't know where. I wrote it out for my Aunt
Charlotte who was interested in home birth, and I kept a copy.
So I'm just going to start from scratch -- hoping that I'll actually
get this story out in some form.
The
story has three sections. That's part of the complexity of
the thing. First there is the story of how I came to have a home
birth. Then there is the story of the birth itself. Then there are
some afterthoughts and experiences. When I was trying to think of
which part I would focus on in a five minute window, I was having a
hard time.
That's
been an issue in my sketch writing attempts. I've been in 3 sketch
writing courses. Getting my writing down to 3 pages and focusing on
only one game has been troublesome.
Even
now, I've been writing for some time here and I'm not down to the
actual story of the birth of my first child, so I must jump in.
The
decision to have natural childbirth
I
think I first heard of this concept when I was an exchange student in
France. I was an exchange student there twice. The first time was
after I graduated early from high school. I did a second senior year
in France and got a French high school diploma. The second time was
my junior year in college, when I did an engineering internship with
Framatome. I stayed with the same host family both times. The first
time was because YFU, the agency that sent me over, put me in that
family. The second time it was because the family wanted me back. I
think IAESTE was going to put me in a dorm.
My
French host mother attempted natural childbirth with her first child.
She enjoyed the experience, but ended up having a ceasarian for
failure to progress. She was absolutely persuaded that the experience
needn't be painful. In retrospect, I wonder whether it wasn't her
determination not to feel pain that caused the failure to progress,
but I will get into that later.
Later
I started having recurring dreams of childbirth. In my dreams,
childbirth felt like orgasm. My subconscious seemed to be trying to
convince me that labor was going to be wonderful. I later learned
that there are aspects of natural childbirth that are like orgasm,
indeed, though it wasn't exactly the way I dreamed it.
I
was determined to be married when I had children; and I had a hard
time getting to that point, so despite the recurring dreams it was a
long time before I got children.
I
had a co-worker at one point in Minnesota who had many children and
elected to do home births after the first few. That struck me as
quite strange at the time, and I attributed it to the fact that he
was in a cult. Later -- as you can see from my story of the birth of
my second child -- I learned that after the first birth the process
can be quite easy, so it wasn't so surprising that he chose to do it
at home. Also, we were in Rochester, MN, home of the Mayo Clinic and
associated hospitals, so if anything had gone wrong he could have
gotten help pretty quickly.
There
was at one point a message in my Quaker meeting from a man who
alleged that relief from pain did not justify using anesthesia, which
bore risks of complication for the child -- and the mother. I
thought, at the time, that this guy was rather arrogant, not being
the one who would have to go through the pain; though he did have a
big burn scar and pointed out that he had been in a situation of
severe pain and that his body had protected him from it. His words
against anesthesia stuck in my mind.
When
I finally succeeded in being married and pregnant I was 33. I guess
this part is hard to talk about, because my marriage ended in
divorce, a divorce I didn't want.
I'm
not sure how my ex got interested in natural childbirth, but he had
read up on it. He was very nervous about what hospitals do to women
in childbirth. He kept telling me things that made me nervous in
turn.
Because
he made me nervous, I asked a lot of questions of my doctor.
Eventually, I asked so many questions that my doctors got defensive
and told me that they couldn't handle my case.
I
went to a second medical pratice, and still was not satisfied with
the answers to questions, so I ended up with a certified nurse
midwife who did home births -- fairly late in my pregnancy.
A
lot of women are reluctant to change doctors. I would say definitely
one should never fear that - especially in the NYC metro area where
there are lots of doctors. One should shop for a doctor like a car.
These
questions that I was pestering the doctors with related to several
topics.
One
was episiotomy. The natural childbirth literature insisted that
episiotomy would make tearing worse, but doctors were persuaded it
would make tearing better -- and generally did episiotomies even when
mothers had requested none. My sister-in-law, who has a Ph.D. in
mechanical engineering, agreed with the natural childbirth
literature, that from the point of view of mechanical engineering
cutting would increase the likelihood of tearing. I believed her.
Another
was lighting. The natural childbirth literature claimed that bright
lights, as found in a hospital setting, would inhibit childbirth,
because women, like dogs and cats, would instinctively seek a dark,
safe place for childbirth. This made a lot of sense to me. Why
would I want to have bright lights and a clinical environment with
equipment and strangers? I felt in my gut that the natural childbirth
advocates were right about this.
Yet,
another topic was positioning, Natural childbirth advocates favored
a vertical position for the mother, so that gravity would help with
the birth process. My doctors told me that they would put me in a
tilted position, so that I wouldn't be flat on my back as women were
in earlier days. They said gravity would help me. The natural
childbirth advocates favored standing or squatting. They said
squatting would open your pelvis by an extra 2 cm.
I
knew I wasn't going to be able to squat long enough, not being from a
culture where people frequently squat, to have a baby; but a vertical
position made sense to me. I knew from my outdoors experience that
that standing worked well for defecation outdoors. I would never
have laid down in bed, even tilted up, for that purpose. The bed
position was clearly for the convenience of the doctor, not of for
the convenience of the mom.
The
defecation analogy also reminded me that I have a shy colon and often
can only do this at home. It seemed to me by analogy that I wouldn't
be able to give birth outside my home either.
A
further issue was fetal monitoring during childbirth. The natural
childbirth advocates felt that it was used entirely too often, when
the doptone device had never detected fetal distress. They felt that
putting something around the woman's abdomen and forcing her to lie
down was going to distract her from the childbirth process and make
failure to progress more likely. This also made sense to me.
The
doptone device was really amazing. It could detect the fetal
heartbeat without much intrusion. It was much less intrusive than a
fetal monitor.
I
had an interesting discussion with my father, after I had decided to
have a home birth. Both of my parents were concerned about my
decision. My father's questioning me about it was a particularly
significant event, because his normal opinion of childrearing was
that it was my mother's job. He normally wasn't involved. This time
he got involved, perhaps at her urging.
One
topic that came up was the doptone. Even though he was a physicist,
and had heard of the Dopler Effect, he had some trouble accepting
that it would be good for measuring fetal heartbeat. I think I
finally convinced him.
Both
of my parents were born at home, yet they had bought into the concept
that hospital births were better. I convinced my dad, I thnk, that
the doctors who tended his mom were not nearly so well equipped or
medically advanced as these certified nurse midwives I consulted
were. They had masters degrees and hospital residencies. The
midwives also had oxygen. We were 10 minutes drive to a level III
hospital. These were all things that I told him about to convince him
that what I was doing made sense.
He
finally concluded that I was right. He said he was trying to secure
less intrusive medical care for himself. He was a big advocate for
aid in dying.
Another
issue in natural childbirth was the use of pain relief medication.
For myself, I was coming to trust my dreams. Labor was going to be
good. I wanted to be present for childbirth. I didn't care how much
it hurt. I wanted to experience it.
But
the natural childbirth people pointed out that women often ended up
with anesthesia even when they said in advance that they didn't want
it, because they would ask for it in transition and regret it later.
There was a need for a written agreement not to use anesthesia.
Midwives would do such an agreement. Doctors would not.
Another
issue was controlling who would be present during childbirth. In a
hospital, there would be random changes in personnel, due to work
shifts. In a home birth, you could control who was there. Again, the
importance was in the mother feeling safe, so that she could
concentrate on the birth and avoid failure to progress.
Another
concern was the use of labor induction medication. Again, natural
childbirth advocates said it was used too frequently, and often led
to injury to the mother or the baby if the doses were too high. Also
it would increase pain and therefore the likelihood that the mother
would ask for anesthesia, which could also lead to increased risk.
Also
mentioned was danger of infection. At that time, the presence of
antibiotic resistant bacteria in hospitals was less prevalent than
today. Even so, natural childbirth advocates pointed out that a mom
would have immunity to the bacteria in her home -- that infection
arose from whoever came in to the home. If the person coming in to
assist was properly clean, then there would not be risk of infection.
They were concerned about anti-biotic resistant bacteria in
hospitals then, but we should be even more concerned now.
Still
another question was how long the practitioner should wait between
when the mom's water broke and labor would be induced. That turned
out to be relevant.
Another
controversy related to whether the mom should be able to eat and
drink during labor. The doctors in the hospitals preferred that she
not eat or drink as there might be nausea and vomitting -- or there
might be issues with defecation during labor. The result of this
practice was that the mother in labor would have to have an IV.
Again this type of intrusion was -- according to the natual
childbirth advocates -- more likely to result in failure to progress.
The natural childbirth advocates favored continuing some hydration
and eating some things, like ice cream. I don't remember the details
-- but that sure sounded better to me than an IV.
I
think perhaps also, in hospitals, there would be some kind of enema
to make sure that the mom didn't defecate during labor, but not
necessarily at home.
In
any case, by the time I asked enough questions, I was very convinced
that midwives were the right way to go.
They
were also different from the doctors in being willing to sit around
for extended periods of time and answer questions.
They
made me redo my childbirth classes, because they didn't trust the
Lamaze classes that were offered at the local hospital. They wanted
me to learn more about what really goes on in childbirth. They
taught me a lot more medical information.
I
remember one of the last things they said at my last class was that
the equivalent of 10,000 birth control pills was coursing through my
bloodstream.
Another
thing she did, which I didn't understand at the time, was to try to
induce labor by using psychological methods to make my mind release
occitocin. Occitocin is the hormone that induces labor. It's also
the called the cuddle hormone. It's released by cuddling, and by
stimulation of certain zones of the body, like the genitalia, the
breasts, the lips, and the ear lobes.
What
she said was that I should think back to romantic times in my
relationship with my husband, like the first time we held hands or
the first time we kissed. I didn't understand then, but I realize
now that thinking of those things would help me release occitocin.
Some
of the natural childbirth advocates recommend having sex at to induce
labor, because sex will also release occitocin. We didn't need to
worry about that, as my water broke 10 days before my due date.
Yet
another point made by home birth advocates relates to bonding with
the child. The child passes through the birth canal, which super
stimulates the production of occitocin, even more than labor.
Occitocin causes bonding. That means that the mom is primed to bond
with the kid. When hospitals put the baby in a separate room to
sleep, that interferes with bonding. Home birth advocates never want
to separate the mom and the baby.
The
midwives also told me that the yoga that I had been doing for years
was better preparation for childbirth than Lamaze courses.
---------------------
The
birth itself
My
water broke as soon as I got home from that last class.
I
had many painful contractions over the next 24 hours, but the midwife
insisted on not coming, because the contractions were not regular, so
she said labor was not well established. Eventually, I insisted that
the nurse must come, so she did. My contractions became regular as
soon as she arrived.
This
was my first real understanding of what the natural childbirth
literature was saying. Labor is a psychosexual process. It does in
fact depend on the psychological state of the mother. She has to
feel safe. I couldn't get well established in labor until the nurse
came, because I didn't feel safe.
Since
then, I have heard it said that failure to progress is much more
common amongst women who have been sexually abused -- another example
of the psychological aspect of this process. Fortunately, I was not
sexually abused.
During
that "pre" labor, I noticed something interesting. My ex
was playing the guitar and singing to me. Normally, I liked to sing
with him. I couldn't sing during the contractions, but theoretically
I could have sung between the contractions -- yet I couldn't sing
anyway, because I was crying too hard every time I tried to sing. In
retrospect, I came to believe that much of the perception of pain and
unbearability in labor may be related to those 10,000 birth control
pills worth of hormones in the blood, rather than actual pain.
After
the nurse arrived, it took less than 6 hours for me to get to
transition, which is fairly fast.
I
guess, looking back at this, one reason I was reluctant to tell this
story was that the midwife violated the generally accepted standard
of care in how long she waited for me to go into labor without
inducing. Fortunately, nothing bad happened to me as a result.
There
is something in me that is very slavish about rules. The fact that
rules were broken somehow frightens me.
Another
thing that the nurse did was again to try to stimulate the release of
occitocin naturally, by telling me that when she examined me she
could see a cute little girl baby with brown hair inside of me. This
wasn't true, I now realize, because I wasn't dilated yet, but it was
a technique to make me feel what I needed to feel to release
occitocin. I always had brown hair as a young person. She was saying
the baby would look like me. Actually, it turned out to be a blond
boy, but that's not relevant at this point.
That
six hours was quite painful. I later learned that I was having "back
labor," that my baby was oriented the wrong way, which made
things more difficult. Curiously, that child has been that same way
ever since.
Then
came transition. Transition, for those who don't know, is when labor
changes from dilation to pushing. This is the time when moms in
labor are known to start trying to hurt the father of the baby --
screaming, throwing things. It's reputed to be very painful, and it
sure seemed so. I started asking for pain medication.
It's
also a moment of massive hormonal shift in the body, which is also
why it's very upsetting.
This
is where the difference between the midwife and the doctor was
critical. That midwife knew that I didn't really want pain
medication. She practiced tough love. A doctor wouldn't have done
that. Also, of course, in my home, anesthesia couldn't be used. You
have to do that in a hospital, because it can result in complications
that may require emergency intervention, including surgery, so I
would have had to have been transported to a hospital if I insisted
on the medication, which I didn't.
But
she said to me that I was fighting my labor. She told me that I must
say yes to the pain, that the pain would bring the child. I started
saying "Yes, yes, yes" very fast. It was probably the
hardest thing I ever did -- and very different from the experience of my French host mother, who was taught to avoid pain in childbirth.
Another
thing that happened at that time was that I called out for my mother.
I blogged about this before.
I'm
tempted to repeat what I said there, because it was a big part of
what I might have said in a story either in a story telling class or
at the Moth; but I guess -- since I already wrote it -- I will just
refer people to the link.
Another
thing that the midwife did was give me a quick voice lesson. She
noticed that I was making high noises. She told me that that was not
good for my labor. She told me to make low noises and use my
diaphragm to push on my uterus. That concept made me sing better
after labor also.
She
never told me to be quiet or suppress expressions of pain. The low
noises that I was making were very loud.
One
of the strategies of the midwives was to get the mother in labor to
move around. This helps with the labor but also distracts the mom
from the pain. I was sitting on the toilet in our larger bathroom
when I called out to my mother.
They
moved me to the shower in the smaller bathroom after that. The
shower has several advantages. One is that the hot water is
relaxing, which is nice for tired muscles. Another is that the water
passes over the nipples, which stimulates the release of occitocin, a
natural labor inducing technique.
At
some point, either before I entered or while I was in the shower, the
midwife examined my cervix and said it was ok to start pushing. Once I thought about pushing, I could really feel the size of the baby's
head and what I would have to do to push that through my body. It
was a pretty scary observation. But the only way out was through, so
what choice was there? I tried pushing. At first the pushes were
fairly tentative, but more enthusiastic later on.
The
shower had a disadvantage. It was small and reflected noise. I think
I damaged my ex's hearing -- making so much noise in there.
Later
the neighbors said they never heard anything when I was in labor. It
wasn't clear whether they were being polite or whether they really
didn't hear anything. If they didn't, it was a testament to the
soundproofing effect of the thick walls of my older home -- but also
rather frightening as it would mean that if I ever screamed for help
they wouldn't hear. I suspect they were just being polite. I have a
loud voice and I was being as loud as I could be, so I suspect they
heard.
I
pushed for over 2 hours making a huge racket the whole time. I
remember referring to the situation in the shower as a 'circus,' in
the letter to my Aunt Charlotte.
After
the baby crowned they had me leave the shower and tried to get me to
walk out through the bedroom where that shower was, through the hall,
and into the bedroom where we had planned to have the birth. They
wanted me to be sitting in a position where I could see the baby come
out. I walked with my arms around my ex's neck -- and him walking
backwards
In
retrospect this seems fairly stupid, as the baby fell out while I was
walking. I really had no interest whatsoever in seeing the baby come
out, none at all. That was one area where they were not adequately
solicitous of what I wanted.
I
stopped when the baby fell out. The midwife saw what was happening in
time. She said "Oops," in a cheerful, calm voice, and
quickly sat down behind me. She safely caught the baby, so that
everything turned out happily.
My
ex wanted to keep walking to the bed as the midwife had originally
instructed. He couldn't see what was happening, because I had my
arms around his neck and he could mostly only see the top of me.
I
said "Too late."
Again,
the midwives allowed me to push for a fairly long time, over two
hours. They told me I would most likely have been induced in a
hospital. I'm very glad that I avoided that.
We
were informed that the baby was fine.
He
had a "maeconium beard." Now this is one of those points
where we separate the men from the women. Women usually have no
problem with these things, while men cringe. What is this beard
thing? Should I say?
In
any case, the fact that the maeconium stopped below his mouth meant
that he hadn't inhaled any of it during the birth which meant that he
was ok.
The
midwife got the baby all cleaned up while the nurse watched me. I
think they cleaned up the area where I had been walking, as surely
there must have been fluid dropping out at the time. I learned that
the key in such situations was to clean up as soon as possible to
avoid staining.
There
were both a nurse and a midwife, so that both the baby and I would be
covered if either of us had a medical emergency. Fortunately, no
emergencies developed.
Also
we were instructed to have a friend there to help out with little
things that might need to be done. I chose my yoga teacher, who told
me, when she saw the baby, that she thought it had an old soul.
Then
I got on the bed and they delivered the placenta. I remember that as
soon as I saw it I wanted to eat it. I knew animals eat it, but the
midwife and nurse discouraged me. I was thinking about that placenta
for the entire time between my first and second child and I did eat
the placenta for the second child. I now am a huge advocate of that,
for the reason that I discussed in my story of the birth of my second
child, which I've included a link to above.
The
midwives encouraged me to nurse, as that further releases occitocin
and caused the uterus to contract, which reduces the chance of
hemorrhage. I was later told that hemorrhage is most likely when a
woman has six or more kids, but we didn't get into that at the time.
The midwives were big on nursing, and so were my ex and I. My ex and
I were both nursed as children, which made us somewhat unusual
amongst baby boomers.
Because
the midwife considered my contractions "poopy," in other
words not very strong, she did give me a shot of pitocin after the
birth -- artificial occitocin to make sure that my uterus would
contract properly. Pitocin is what they normally induce labor with --
so I got some of it after all, but not during labor.
My
ex had trouble understanding this interchange. Since I hadn't been
given an enema, I did defecate some in the shower. He thought that
was what they were referring to, but it wasn't.
They
also gave me stitches, because I had torn some. The midwife sat
crosslegged on my bed, between my legs, merrily stitching away. I
think she gave me a shot of lidocaine so I wouldn't feel the
stitches. It was a strangely friendly stitching operation -- not at
all clinical.
They
also put a little cotton cap on the baby so he wouldn't get cold, but
it was a warm evening in any case.
We
had a little gadget that you put on the side of the bed to keep a
child from rolling out. My ex strung up a nightlight above the bed
-- as it was now the middle of the night. The midwives encouraged me
to nurse whenever the baby wanted it, and placed the baby between me
and the gadget, and turned off the overhead light.
So
there I was lying in the dark with my ex on one side of me and the
baby on the other and the nightlight above me making the baby's body
hair sparkle gold.
I
had had occitocin from the natural birth, from the nursing, and from
the shot. Occitocin is the hormone that causes bonding. I would
encourage the reader to go read the scientific studies comparing
field and prairie voles, where whether they mate for life or not is
entirely dependent on whether the male produces occitocin.
I
got to experience a very intense bonding experience, watching the
baby's golden hairs in the nightlight that night. Nothing could
possible have prepared me for what I felt then. It was stronger than
the worst crush I ever had in junior high. Suddenly that little baby
was the absolute most important thing that had ever been in all of
creation and for all time.
I'm
a bit sad I didn't get that experience quite as much with the second
child, because he had cold shock and had to be put in a warmer right
after birth -- but I certainly bonded with him later.
Afterwards
Some
men lament that their wife seems to love the baby more than them
after it's born. Yes. I believe that that is true and biological.
Stop fighting mother nature, guys. It's impossible. The best thing
is to try to seem to be just as bonded to the baby as she is. That's
the way to win her confidence.
My
ex certainly did that. In fact, he later seemed to feel that being
more bonded to the baby than to me was perfectly natural, sort of
putting the shoe on the other foot ... irony.
I
found afterwards that I felt like a wild animal in a lair with that
baby, because I was in my bedroom all along. When people came in I
really wanted to bite them, but I tried to be polite. Still it
rankled. I doubt that I would have felt quite so wild or so vicious
if I had been in a hospital environment -- but I think what I
experienced was healthier and more natural.
Afterwards,
I did have issues from all the pushing. I had strangulated
hemorrhoids. My back went out twice. I had two breast infections.
It was a tough recovery. It always makes angry when guys think that
six weeks maternity leave is like a vacation. No it's not. Not at
all.
I
took a lot of baths in herb tea. I made my first visit to the
chiropractor. My parents had fear and loathing of chiropractors and
suffered horrible back problems all their lives. I resolved not to
do the same. I've been devoted to chiropractors ever since.
My
mom and mother-in-law did come in to help after the birth, which was
nice, but one of the breast infections was due to my mother-in-law
insisting we should go out to dinner, and I just wasn't physically
strong enough for that.
It's
said that a mom recovers from the trauma of childbirth as soon as she
sees the baby. I found that. The memories of whatever I went through
in labor became sort of dim and I was delighted to be with the baby.
I
think my ex was much more traumatized. He was crying a few days
later.
I
came to the conclusion that husband coached childbirth might not be
such a great idea. The women who were helping me had been through
childbirth. They were calm and cheerful. They weren't traumatized by
watching me in pain. Not so with my ex.
I
read the book The
Mists of Avalon
during recovery. I'm not sure why that book happened to cross my
path. In that book, they claimed that the women of Camelot all
gained second sight -- ESP -- from childbirth.
That
made me think back on what childbirth felt like. It did feel like a
mystical experience. I also felt that the meditations and body
awareness techniques that I learned in yoga had given me a sense of
contact with and some control over the labor process. That
experience had an ESP-like feel about it as I reached out and
contacted parts of my brain that weren't supposed to be accessible to
the conscious brain.
I
feel more work could be done with pregnant women on the
mystical/meditational aspect of natural childbirth, rather than the
idea that breathing technique could eliminate pain.
I
compared my midwife's instruction to say "Yes" to the pain
to the Lamaze instruction to try not to feel pain through breathing
technique; and my French host mother's experience with Lamaze:
feeling no pain but also having failure to progress. I have to
wonder whether this quest for no pain is helpful to the process.
I
also made some observations of my body. I hadn't had any stretch
marks during that first pregnancy, even though I got very large.
Somehow my skin was elastic enough to accommodate what was happening.
However, after the birth, I had stretch marks criss crossed all over
the part of my abdomen below the belly button. I guess that goes to
show how much I had to stretch to push that baby out.
Another
thing I noticed, looking down at that mound of Venus area, that it
was shaped differently. I had once seen my grandmother's body and it
seemed to me that mine now looked like hers. The cartiledge there
had stretched by a good inch or more, so that the shape at the bottom
was blunter --- again a measure of how much I had pushed.
One
of my friends said, in front of her son, that childbirth destroys
your body. Certainly, there were issues with my bladder afterwards
-- but I can't say it was destroyed. It was ready to have the much
easier childbirth experience that I had with the second child, and
which I described in the video referenced above. In any case, what
else was I going to do with the body? It doesn't last forever anyway:
might as well have kids.
The
midwives warned me that I wouldn't really be able to anticipate what
my priorities would be or how I would feel after childbirth. Later I
learned of neurological studies that showed visible neurological
changes in a woman's brain as a result of pregnancy and childbirth.
Once you're a mom, you can't ever stop being a mom. Your brain has
changed. I certainly noticed that when I was looking at the baby
right after he was born. I feel that we ought to be educating young
women about this, much the way we would educate them about
menstruation.
I
got really into this no aesthesia business. I forewent dental
anesthesia for a while. I had a dentist who was ok with that. He
would just give me breaks during drilling. Then he retired and later
dentists were not willing, so I'm back to using novocaine.
OK
-- so I looked at the word count for this document and found it to be
about 5700 words. I learned at the last story slam that 540 words is
about 4 minutes. That would seem to indicate that this story is about
45 minutes -- clearly not ready for The Moth.
