Friday, 06 November 2009

• Currently Deliver This!: Make the Childbirth Choice That's Right for You . . . No Matter What Everyone Else Thinks By Marisa Cohen see related

  Deliver This!

  When I was pregnant with Mercy, I struggled with how to proceed in planning her delivery.  We live in a community in which home-birth is a big deal.  However, I knew that given some conditions that I struggle with, that would be a bad idea.  In fact, one of them (which is of a nature you simply don't blog about) can interfere with childbirth so heavily that many doctors who are familiar with it won't even attempt a natural delivery.  I was conflicted.  A large part of me simply wanted to go straight to the c-section.  I knew how much pain I had been in as a result of this condition in the past and couldn't imagine what delivering a baby would do.  However, I was hearing over and over again how superior a natural delivery was, and it seemed to be some sort of "rite of passage."
  
  So I chose a local doctor who had a reputation for not intervening until the mother and/or baby were absolutely in danger.  He also hadn't really heard of my medical complication, which isn't terribly unusual.  It is rare, and typically affects post-menopausal women, so if a doctor primarily sees women of child-bearing age he very likely hasn't encountered it.  I figured that this way I would be in a hospital should something go wrong, but even the home-birthers liked this doctor, so I wouldn't get as much pressure to rethink my birth-plan.
  
  Things went wrong.  I didn't end up with that c-section, but there was intervention.  Mercy suffered some pretty significant head-trauma (which is, in part, the cause of her gross-motor delays) and my recovery was very difficult.  This coming from someone who had undergone 5 surgeries by the age of 22.  My recovery from my "better, more natural" delivery was the hardest of them all.  My frustration level would go through the roof when people would learn I had a frightening and difficult delivery, but comment "well, at least you didn't have a c-section."  As if that would have been worse than the possibility that the delivery had worsened a pre-existing condition and caused potential damage to our baby.
  
  Toward the end of my pregnancy with Mercy I came across a book entitled "Deliver This!  Make the Childbirth Choice that's Right for You...No Matter what Everyone Else Thinks."  I felt better about my choice to have Mercy in the hospital after reading it, and this time around I have gathered even more confidence.  Gilead is a scheduled c-section.
  
  Yes, it is medically advised c-section, but I still get raised eyebrows and shocked "why's?"  I suppose I could have just gone with the doctor's advice and not told anyone until the last week of pregnancy, and then simply stated that he was breach.  If that turns out to be true, that would be a great alternative, but if it isn't, I couldn't lie.  But, as he said "very few who have had a delivery that is even close to normal are going to understand why this is necessary."
  
  I'm not having a baby for the "experience" of delivery--I want the baby at the end, no matter what kind of delivery is necessary.  For me there is no emotional trauma or feeling of inadequacy for having a c-section.  I don't feel like any more of a woman for having pushed Mercy out, nor do I feel like less of one for having Gilead cut out.  I'm sure very few people who push natural delivery so hard would state that they are in it for the experience as much as the baby, either, but is certainly the impression that I've left with after hearing a passionate speech about the wonders of natural birth.
  
  In the introduction to "Deliver This!" the author, who is a health-writer, states "I have found that no matter what your opinion is on a health issue, somehow, somewhere, there is a published study to back you up (it may have been done on a dozen subjects in a small town in Sweden, but still, it's there and you can quote it.)"  I wanted to shout "Thank you!" when I read that.  I believe we all need to keep it in mind when trying to sway another on a non-salvific or moral issue.
  
  In the chapter dedicated to medically advised, pre-planned c-sections, a paragraph early on says that "while no one grows up dreaming about giving birth in an operating room, these women want you to know that a cesarean can be just as fulfilling and just as wonderful as a vaginal birth--and in some cases, they believe it can be even better for both mother and baby."  Later in the chapter the author emphasizes that we really don't want to hear "oh, I'm sorry" when you learn that we're headed for c-sections--as if we don't end up with beautiful babies just like everyone else.
  
  While I know that many, many people have uneventful, and even relatively quick and easy deliveries, it seems that the fall has affected some of us more than others in that department.  And quite frankly, I am incredibly thankful to live in the day and time that I do.  I will always believe that the interventions that are now possible are part of the redeeming of culture that those of us Reformed circles talk about so readily.  Without them neither me, nor my babies, may have survived delivery.  Yes, I'm having a c-section.  Unless Gilead tries to make an earlier appearance, he'll be coming via a surgeon's hands on February 18.  And we are completely at peace with that.  His delivery is just as much in God's hands as it would be if he arrived at home, or via a natural or medicated delivery in the hospital.  That alone makes the whole thing seem much less an issue than we finite beings want to make it!
  
  
  

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