Borders

On Sunday, a girlfriend, and I went out and saw the movie "Orgasmic Birth". I was completely interested because I want to be a Doula and my friend was totally moved by the film because she is 10 weeks pregnant and was pleased to see some other options for labour and delivery than the usual "lay flat on your back and go against gravity while you push your baby out" way.

Unfortunately the women at the movie were severely biased. These were all women who had used midwives and had experienced a home birth and so therefore whenever a woman on the screen was talking about a hospital birth or how they felt safe in the hospital, or if it showed these women in the hospital pushing, these women sitting behind me would laugh, or scoff or gag and gasp. These women do not understand that it is POSSIBLE to feel safe in a hospital. Or they think their way is the ONLY correct way. These women think that all emergencies can be avoided if they have a home birth but we all know it isn't true because we have seen "The Business of Being Born".

On the other side of the table you have the women I speak to who did have hospital births. Their opinions and views of homebirth are that it is barbaric and selfish. When I mention that I plan on having a homebirth with my next child (whenever that may be) these women gasp and scoff and gag and laugh. Much like the women above. These women think I am kidding. They think I cannot possibly go from having a hospital birth to a homebirth. They think that once I have had the drugs I cannot go back. They think I will kill my baby and die on my living room floor.

Now here is my mission: I want to find smart, educated women who know BOTH sides of the story. I am sick of being the outsider no matter where I go. I want to talk to women who did both, or who know both, who won't judge me for one or the other because they understand.

My first birth experience was brutal. 26 hours of back labour, vomiting with each contraction, stuck at 2 cms for 20 hours, walking, rocking on the birth bll, the bath, the shower, nothing helped. There was meconium in the water, i went anemic and started passing out, code "baby green" was called. I was delerious and finally begged for an epidural because I couldn't handle that one thing after another was going wrong. The epidural stopped the throwing up because my body could no longer feel the pain of contractions. I was finally able to sleep for 2 hours and then bam it was time to push. My epidural had worn off, thank goodness, because the pushing and birth of my daughter was what i WANTED to experience. Then my daughters heart rate nearly stopped so my doctor had me on oxygen and gave me an episiotomy. I couldn't hold her right away because she may have inhaled meconium. Once she was checked out and perfect they went sit me up so I could hold her and I nearly fainted due to being anemic (which they didn't know at the time) SO i had to lay flat on my back for an hour. Then I had a shower and the first time I held my daughter was 2 hours later when a nurse told me that it was probably too late for my daughter to learn to breastfeed because it had been too long. I started crying because after all that I just wanted to breastfeed.

Luckily that nurse was just a mjor bitch, my daughter breastfed beautifully and we are all happy and healthy today. But seriously. I have every right to want a different, happier, blissful experience when I do give birth next time. BUT I also wouldn't change anything about Devyn's birth because it was an experience, it was still the best day of my life and I think that by becoming a Doula, I have the abilty to not JUDGE a woman based on her experience. I won't scoff at her asking for an epidural. I won't laugh when she doesn't want to push anymore. I know what it is like to be on that side. I also know what it means to hope for something different. And with educating myself I know that I can help other women avoid the type of birth experience that I had.