I've talked already about how everything's an early pregnancy symptom. But that's not the only way that trying to conceive creates superstitions.
There's a constant attention paid to Murphy's law, and I think that's because of all the stories of 40 year old women who want children desperately and have money and stable homes but can't conceive, and then 13 year old girls getting pregnant accidentally and having it mess up their lives. There's this idea that if you try, it won't happen. If you hope too much, it won't happen.
So when I saw an Avent Isis breastpump and breastmilk storage supplies to go with it for a total of $12 at a local store that sells brand new dented box merchandise, I should have bought it. But I didn't. Why? Because it would be staring me in the face if I can't get pregnant! We've already bought a couple of things, but somehow the breast pump just seemed like too much to get before even conceiving. In many ways, there's so many things where it'd be really easy to start stocking up now, like cloth diapers, but I shy away.
I hate superstition! I know it's wrong. I do. Especially when I catch myself thinking, oh, great, I forgot to take my prenatal vitamin, now I'll definitely get pregnant because I'm being stupid and unprepared! It's bad. But I don't know how to stop it.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
J's IUD came out. It was sort of awesome, but I don't think I ever want one.
So I'm trying to cool my heels this cycle. The first month I tried to conceive, I was charting and driving myself totally nuts. The second month -- last month -- I ended up having a 102 degree fever for the time when I'd have normally ovulated, and had an anovulatory cycle. In order to not keep worrying myself all the time, I am going to temp every OTHER cycle, rather than every cycle. I think this will keep me from being totally nuts and obsessive, while still keeping track of my fertility enough that I can feel confident in my ability to conceive.
I had a nice, ovulatory cycle the first cycle I tracked, so I don't think ovulation is something I need to worry about. But still, the worries are always there. What if I'm infertile? What if my husband is? Yikes! I had what I assume to be a very early miscarriage last fall -- a late period, tender breasts, and then a positive test followed an hour later by heavy bleeding -- but that doesn't stop me from concocting scenarios in which either of us could have BECOME infertile since.
To make matters worse, my periods have been really odd since I stopped hormonal contraceptives. They have, in the past, been heavy but rather short. Now, I bleed lightly for 1-2 hours a day, every day, for about a week. It's hardly a damn period, and even 2 years ago when I stopped hormonal contraceptives for a few months (I wasn't partnered at the time), I didn't have this sort of weirdness. So even though I spent all my periods before wishing they'd be lighter and less crampy, I'm now wishing for the old-style, cramping, tampon-soaking period.
By the way, I will never tell you that I'm about to give you "TMI." You're reading a blog about conception, pregnancy, and birth. These things all involve bodily fluids, physical processes, and sights, sounds, and smells that might not always be pleasant. If you have an aversion to hearing about those, what on EARTH are you doing reading this blog? I always hate in pregnancy communities when women pre-emptively apologize for including too much information about their discharge or periods or mucus plugs. We're all grownups. I want to talk about birth honestly, and I can't be honest without talking about my body and the things it does. I hope no one has an issue with that, but if you do, don't expect me to go changing things for you.
So I'm trying to cool my heels this cycle. The first month I tried to conceive, I was charting and driving myself totally nuts. The second month -- last month -- I ended up having a 102 degree fever for the time when I'd have normally ovulated, and had an anovulatory cycle. In order to not keep worrying myself all the time, I am going to temp every OTHER cycle, rather than every cycle. I think this will keep me from being totally nuts and obsessive, while still keeping track of my fertility enough that I can feel confident in my ability to conceive.
I had a nice, ovulatory cycle the first cycle I tracked, so I don't think ovulation is something I need to worry about. But still, the worries are always there. What if I'm infertile? What if my husband is? Yikes! I had what I assume to be a very early miscarriage last fall -- a late period, tender breasts, and then a positive test followed an hour later by heavy bleeding -- but that doesn't stop me from concocting scenarios in which either of us could have BECOME infertile since.
To make matters worse, my periods have been really odd since I stopped hormonal contraceptives. They have, in the past, been heavy but rather short. Now, I bleed lightly for 1-2 hours a day, every day, for about a week. It's hardly a damn period, and even 2 years ago when I stopped hormonal contraceptives for a few months (I wasn't partnered at the time), I didn't have this sort of weirdness. So even though I spent all my periods before wishing they'd be lighter and less crampy, I'm now wishing for the old-style, cramping, tampon-soaking period.
By the way, I will never tell you that I'm about to give you "TMI." You're reading a blog about conception, pregnancy, and birth. These things all involve bodily fluids, physical processes, and sights, sounds, and smells that might not always be pleasant. If you have an aversion to hearing about those, what on EARTH are you doing reading this blog? I always hate in pregnancy communities when women pre-emptively apologize for including too much information about their discharge or periods or mucus plugs. We're all grownups. I want to talk about birth honestly, and I can't be honest without talking about my body and the things it does. I hope no one has an issue with that, but if you do, don't expect me to go changing things for you.
Friday, June 20, 2008
More about choices -- this time, from a fat perspective
I talk a lot in this blog about choices, and how informed choice is what frames my ideas of birth. I also talk about the fact that, for all the rhetoric of choice in this country, if you aren't born with an awful lot of privilege, you may not have all the choices you supposedly have. This isn't just true with economic privilege or abortion rights.
This and this show how fat women are often told that their choices don't matter and are forced to use medical treatment that is against hard medical evidence (being given statins during pregnancy, or getting a vertical incision c-section) and which is often dehumanizing or demeaning. Being told to make funeral arrangements? Pressure to be sterilized? This is disgusting treatment that no one should be forced to go through.
I am strongly drawn to unassisted home birth for reasons that I have talked about in previous entries, but I regret the fact that another component of my decision is grounded in fear. I am deeply afraid of a doctor treating me the way Gina Marie's doctor treated her. I'm afraid of being pressured into doing things against my will at an extremely vulnerable time. At my weight, I would very likely be "risked out" of a great many midwifery practices, and even going to a midwife doesn't guarantee that you'll get good treatment, as the Gina Marie story so clearly illustrates. Over and over, I've seen doctors treat fat people like they were less than human, and asking them to follow courses of treatment that are not medically sound (one example? Having a doctor recommend an 800 calorie starvation diet, a surefire recipe for muscle loss, metabolism slowdown, and eventual weight regain).
Because I believe I would want an unassisted birth regardless of all this, I hate the fact that my choice is also one made because I fear the other options. This is especially bad because, of course, if there is a labor emergency requiring medical attention I would want and need to go to the hospital. I am counting on my labor support people to get my wishes through to any particularly thick skulls in the hospital. Our local hospital, which is so small it doesn't have a full-time OB or most medical specialists, has weight loss surgery seminars and support groups every week, so I'm doubting it's exactly size-positive.
I wish I felt I could trust doctors to do what is right for me. I wish I could trust them not to take advantage of labor's hormones and emotions to push an anti-fat agenda. But I can't. Staying out of the hospital from start to finish is the only way to guarantee that my care won't be severely compromised just because I'm fat.
This and this show how fat women are often told that their choices don't matter and are forced to use medical treatment that is against hard medical evidence (being given statins during pregnancy, or getting a vertical incision c-section) and which is often dehumanizing or demeaning. Being told to make funeral arrangements? Pressure to be sterilized? This is disgusting treatment that no one should be forced to go through.
I am strongly drawn to unassisted home birth for reasons that I have talked about in previous entries, but I regret the fact that another component of my decision is grounded in fear. I am deeply afraid of a doctor treating me the way Gina Marie's doctor treated her. I'm afraid of being pressured into doing things against my will at an extremely vulnerable time. At my weight, I would very likely be "risked out" of a great many midwifery practices, and even going to a midwife doesn't guarantee that you'll get good treatment, as the Gina Marie story so clearly illustrates. Over and over, I've seen doctors treat fat people like they were less than human, and asking them to follow courses of treatment that are not medically sound (one example? Having a doctor recommend an 800 calorie starvation diet, a surefire recipe for muscle loss, metabolism slowdown, and eventual weight regain).
Because I believe I would want an unassisted birth regardless of all this, I hate the fact that my choice is also one made because I fear the other options. This is especially bad because, of course, if there is a labor emergency requiring medical attention I would want and need to go to the hospital. I am counting on my labor support people to get my wishes through to any particularly thick skulls in the hospital. Our local hospital, which is so small it doesn't have a full-time OB or most medical specialists, has weight loss surgery seminars and support groups every week, so I'm doubting it's exactly size-positive.
I wish I felt I could trust doctors to do what is right for me. I wish I could trust them not to take advantage of labor's hormones and emotions to push an anti-fat agenda. But I can't. Staying out of the hospital from start to finish is the only way to guarantee that my care won't be severely compromised just because I'm fat.
Monday, June 16, 2008
My mother's births, and why my mother will not be at my birth.
My mother gave birth twice. Both were victories, in their day, in some ways.
Her first child (me) was born by caesarean section. This was something she had always hoped to avoid, but at 8.5 months, I turned transverse and would not budge. There was too little amniotic fluid to attempt version, so a c-section it was (given her second pregnancy, I wonder if I might have turned if I had been left to cook a bit longer, but this was the 80s). My mother was upset about it, but was even more upset that she would have to leave my father behind. At that time, the partners of women getting c-sections were expected to stay out of the operating room, leaving the woman totally without a support network at a time when she really needed one.
My mother successfully argued her way into letting my father come to her birth. My father was the first non-doctor father they'd allowed in to see a c-section birth, and he stayed and took pictures (they didn't turn out too well until I was out, but that's okay). My mother didn't have to be without labor support, something that was very unusual for that time and place.
Four years later, when she was pregnant with my sister, my mother saw no logic to the "once a caesarean, always a caesarean" rule. Her body had been more than capable of birthing, my positioning was just very unlucky (and unusual -- a very, very small percentage of babies stay in the position I did for as long as I did!). She wanted this newfangled thing she'd been hearing about, a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean). Her OB/GYN flatly refused, and fired her as a patient when she continued to insist. She went to one who would "allow" her a "trial of labor," and her pregnancy progressed. She and an aunt of mine had an identical due date, and when my aunt gave birth at 36.5 weeks with a very short and precipitous labor, my mother felt more than a pang of jealousy. But she was happy when she passed 38 weeks and my sister was head-down, just like she should be. At 40 weeks, she could see my aunt's nearly month old baby and started wondering when labor would kick into gear. Another week passed, and another. At 42 weeks, many hospitals would force a patient into an induction, but they knew that an induction with a VBAC meant a higher risk of uterine rupture. She went in for tests daily to make sure the baby was okay, which it was. Another week passed as she tried all the usual methods and some unusual ones for getting labor to start: she had a lot of sex, did physical activity, rode a motorcycle. Nothing worked, and another week passed. At 44 weeks, I'm sure she wondered if she'd EVER stop being pregnant.
At 44.5 weeks, she had her successful VBAC after a 48 hour labor. As it turned out, the OB/GYN who had flatly refused the VBAC was the one on call that night, and handled it with professionalism and decency (he is now a big advocate of VBAC!). My father was there at this birth as well, and my mother tried very hard to lobby for me to be present at the birth too. In spite of the fact that they never let children under the age of 8 into the delivery room, I was already into my "I want to be an obstetrician" phase, and wowed the doctors with my high level of verbal interaction. However, because VBACs were so new and there wasn't tons of data on their safety yet, they were worried there could be major issues, and the doctors didn't want to have to worry about what to do with me if my mom had to be whisked off to the OR. So I stayed and waited with my aunts, and only got to meet my sister when she was cleaned up and presentable.
My mother was a fighter against interventions she saw as unnecessary, and fought for labor support and to have her immediate family around her during birth. It should come as no surprise to her that I would be similarly radical in thinking. But upon even testing the waters in discussions of birth with her, my mother has nothing but good things to say about epidurals and medicalized, hospitalized birth. When I've mentioned my plans for a natural birth, she's said "oh, you'll be crying for the epidural in an hour, and remember, it took me 48 hours to have your sister." When I've even mentioned the idea of home birth, she seems to think it's a naive and foolish thing to plan -- again, her idea is that I will automatically want to go to a hospital right away.
That kind of defeatist attitude, the idea that failure is inevitable and that my body won't be strong enough, is exactly the wrong kind of thing to have around at birth. There are many points during labor where going to the hospital or staying home to birth are determined by the level of support and optimism the laboring woman is surrounded by. During the parts of labor where I say "I can't do this, I refuse to do this, the pain is too much," I want someone to be around to say "you're already doing this, this is normal, you are doing great. I worry that if my mother was around, she'd say "well, the pain would go away if you'd just go in to the hospital." I worry that if she was up here, even if she said nothing, I wouldn't let my control lapse. If you can't let your guard down, you can't birth effectively.
The people I will have at my birth are the exact people who live here in the house now. One of those people, my housemate J, whom I've talked about in previous entries, is a doula and knows a whole lot about birth. The other three are men, two of whom I love and couldn't imagine a birth without, the other of whom is J's husband, who will be there for the little logistical things that need to be done, like calling people who need to be called or heating blankets or sterilizing scissors. Four other people. I've seen them all naked and vice versa, so there's no possible body shame issues there, and they will be there the entire birth. How many hospital births can you say that about? Most hospital births involve a small platoon of medical personnel, many of whom are only seen by the laboring woman for a short amount of time.
One of T's jobs -- that's J's husband -- is to call my mother when the pushing stage starts. Even traveling at top speeds with no traffic, it's seven hours from my mother's doorstep to mine. That means that even with a long pushing phase, my mother will get there when the baby's born and not before. If somehow she managed to get up here sooner, the pressure to have an epidural or whatnot is off at that point.
In some ways I sincerely wish I could invite my mother to my labor as well. It would be a culmination of those ways in which she fought for herself, an evolution of the type of birth she wanted. I would have no issue inviting my father, because he would tell me that my choices are my own. But as it stands, I think she would be more of a hindrance than a help and I can't very well invite dad without mom. So, mom, if you find this blog (you've found all the other ones, right?), that entry is for you. If, between now and my birth, you can convince me that my fears are wrong, I would be more than happy to invite you. I could see you being a fantastic help, if only you could get it through your head that sometimes I don't want the same things you want!
Her first child (me) was born by caesarean section. This was something she had always hoped to avoid, but at 8.5 months, I turned transverse and would not budge. There was too little amniotic fluid to attempt version, so a c-section it was (given her second pregnancy, I wonder if I might have turned if I had been left to cook a bit longer, but this was the 80s). My mother was upset about it, but was even more upset that she would have to leave my father behind. At that time, the partners of women getting c-sections were expected to stay out of the operating room, leaving the woman totally without a support network at a time when she really needed one.
My mother successfully argued her way into letting my father come to her birth. My father was the first non-doctor father they'd allowed in to see a c-section birth, and he stayed and took pictures (they didn't turn out too well until I was out, but that's okay). My mother didn't have to be without labor support, something that was very unusual for that time and place.
Four years later, when she was pregnant with my sister, my mother saw no logic to the "once a caesarean, always a caesarean" rule. Her body had been more than capable of birthing, my positioning was just very unlucky (and unusual -- a very, very small percentage of babies stay in the position I did for as long as I did!). She wanted this newfangled thing she'd been hearing about, a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean). Her OB/GYN flatly refused, and fired her as a patient when she continued to insist. She went to one who would "allow" her a "trial of labor," and her pregnancy progressed. She and an aunt of mine had an identical due date, and when my aunt gave birth at 36.5 weeks with a very short and precipitous labor, my mother felt more than a pang of jealousy. But she was happy when she passed 38 weeks and my sister was head-down, just like she should be. At 40 weeks, she could see my aunt's nearly month old baby and started wondering when labor would kick into gear. Another week passed, and another. At 42 weeks, many hospitals would force a patient into an induction, but they knew that an induction with a VBAC meant a higher risk of uterine rupture. She went in for tests daily to make sure the baby was okay, which it was. Another week passed as she tried all the usual methods and some unusual ones for getting labor to start: she had a lot of sex, did physical activity, rode a motorcycle. Nothing worked, and another week passed. At 44 weeks, I'm sure she wondered if she'd EVER stop being pregnant.
At 44.5 weeks, she had her successful VBAC after a 48 hour labor. As it turned out, the OB/GYN who had flatly refused the VBAC was the one on call that night, and handled it with professionalism and decency (he is now a big advocate of VBAC!). My father was there at this birth as well, and my mother tried very hard to lobby for me to be present at the birth too. In spite of the fact that they never let children under the age of 8 into the delivery room, I was already into my "I want to be an obstetrician" phase, and wowed the doctors with my high level of verbal interaction. However, because VBACs were so new and there wasn't tons of data on their safety yet, they were worried there could be major issues, and the doctors didn't want to have to worry about what to do with me if my mom had to be whisked off to the OR. So I stayed and waited with my aunts, and only got to meet my sister when she was cleaned up and presentable.
My mother was a fighter against interventions she saw as unnecessary, and fought for labor support and to have her immediate family around her during birth. It should come as no surprise to her that I would be similarly radical in thinking. But upon even testing the waters in discussions of birth with her, my mother has nothing but good things to say about epidurals and medicalized, hospitalized birth. When I've mentioned my plans for a natural birth, she's said "oh, you'll be crying for the epidural in an hour, and remember, it took me 48 hours to have your sister." When I've even mentioned the idea of home birth, she seems to think it's a naive and foolish thing to plan -- again, her idea is that I will automatically want to go to a hospital right away.
That kind of defeatist attitude, the idea that failure is inevitable and that my body won't be strong enough, is exactly the wrong kind of thing to have around at birth. There are many points during labor where going to the hospital or staying home to birth are determined by the level of support and optimism the laboring woman is surrounded by. During the parts of labor where I say "I can't do this, I refuse to do this, the pain is too much," I want someone to be around to say "you're already doing this, this is normal, you are doing great. I worry that if my mother was around, she'd say "well, the pain would go away if you'd just go in to the hospital." I worry that if she was up here, even if she said nothing, I wouldn't let my control lapse. If you can't let your guard down, you can't birth effectively.
The people I will have at my birth are the exact people who live here in the house now. One of those people, my housemate J, whom I've talked about in previous entries, is a doula and knows a whole lot about birth. The other three are men, two of whom I love and couldn't imagine a birth without, the other of whom is J's husband, who will be there for the little logistical things that need to be done, like calling people who need to be called or heating blankets or sterilizing scissors. Four other people. I've seen them all naked and vice versa, so there's no possible body shame issues there, and they will be there the entire birth. How many hospital births can you say that about? Most hospital births involve a small platoon of medical personnel, many of whom are only seen by the laboring woman for a short amount of time.
One of T's jobs -- that's J's husband -- is to call my mother when the pushing stage starts. Even traveling at top speeds with no traffic, it's seven hours from my mother's doorstep to mine. That means that even with a long pushing phase, my mother will get there when the baby's born and not before. If somehow she managed to get up here sooner, the pressure to have an epidural or whatnot is off at that point.
In some ways I sincerely wish I could invite my mother to my labor as well. It would be a culmination of those ways in which she fought for herself, an evolution of the type of birth she wanted. I would have no issue inviting my father, because he would tell me that my choices are my own. But as it stands, I think she would be more of a hindrance than a help and I can't very well invite dad without mom. So, mom, if you find this blog (you've found all the other ones, right?), that entry is for you. If, between now and my birth, you can convince me that my fears are wrong, I would be more than happy to invite you. I could see you being a fantastic help, if only you could get it through your head that sometimes I don't want the same things you want!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
One more note, in relation to the post below:
This is why I am pro-CHOICE, not pro-abortion. The fact that doctors would use misinformation to encourage abortion is as deeply disturbing and horrifying as CPCs using misinformation to discourage it.
There are two kinds of birth people...
I generally hate any kind of "there are two kinds of people" discussion. It's polarizing, and it often leaves a lot of people out. But I have to say, when it comes to birth junkies in general, the polarization is already there. In general, women who are very interested in birth and especially natural birth options fall into one of two categories: very liberal, hippie, crunchy, granola types, and extremely conservative Christian types. I fall into the former, but it's a pretty even split between the two groups.
In some ways, this makes sense: extremes often meet up in some areas. Both the hippies and the Christians believe that birth is an event that needs more attention, and that giving birth is an event to be celebrated or even worshipped. The hippies believe it because of a fundamentally pro-women and pro-choice bent, the Christians do because of a fundamentally pro-creation one. This means that in most birth-related things, the two groups converge. When it comes to helping a woman have a safe and happy home birth, or making sure her doctor doesn't get too pushy, or mothering a new mother, it's very easy to be in the same position. But there's one issue where the two groups diverge radically.
That issue is abortion.
My housemate J and I often wish that we lived closer to an abortion clinic. Neither of us has personally had an abortion. However, we have respect for women's bodies and women's choices, and believe that in the absence of coercion women generally make the right choices for their lives and themselves. We would like to help at clinics, by being clinic escorts or even abortion doulas. I'll talk more about the practice of being a birth doula later (which is something I'm intending to start doing this year, exciting!) but essentially it means being a non-medical support person and advocate. Just as in birth, women who are aborting need someone to stand by them and be their representative and advocate during a difficult time. They may need someone to stay with them during the recovery phase, or need someone to run interference with clinic protesters. This is the sort of thing we could and would do if we lived near a clinic, but we don't. Small towns don't generally have an abortion clinic, and ours is no exception.
And on the other side, there are the Christians. They, too, believe very strongly in this issue. While I was at a meeting of doulas recently, several of the women who gravitated more toward the Christian, pro-creation side of this debate were talking rather excitedly about working at a crisis pregnancy center.
If you don't know what a crisis pregnancy center is, they're often listed as "abortion alternatives" in your Yellow Pages. They're also the places that put up those signs reading things like: "Pregnant? Scared? Need someone to talk to? Call us." Their stated purpose is to prevent abortions.
As a stated purpose, I don't think that's too bad. I certainly would like it if there were fewer abortions in this country, which is why I advocate comprehensive sex education and easy access to reliable contraception. No one (except perhaps a few very crazy internet people) wishes for more abortions. I believe many women are essentially forced into aborting because of financial circumstances, and that's a terrible, awful thing. That's why I support paid parental leave policies and more benefits for mothers. I want everyone to be able to make a choice about their childbearing independent of their personal finances (choices which also come into play in the hospital birth/home birth issue, which I'll talk about later). If crisis pregnancy centers worked with women to make sure their finances were adequate and help them with the costs and emotional issues of raising a child, I would support their mission.
But crisis pregnancy centers do not do that. Their goal is specifically preventing abortion at all costs. They lie to women, often telling them the old myth that abortion causes cancer or leads to infertility. They have uncertified ultrasound technicians doing ultrasounds and guilt tripping women who are already in a delicate emotional state. They tell women to come in for additional "counseling" appointments that are specifically to delay abortions -- which, because the cost and risk of abortion goes up every week of a pregnancy, is a good way to make abortion an untenable option for some women. Women are promised support in purchasing baby items, but this often amounts to a few onesies and a used piece of baby furniture. Some crisis pregnancy centers have even used women's personal information to track down their relatives and tell them about the unplanned pregnancy and the woman's intention of aborting, if they believe that the woman will go through with an abortion.
When your goal is preventing abortions at all costs, it makes sense to lie to women. The ends justify the means for the people working at crisis pregnancy centers. But I don't believe that we need to lie to vulnerable people, or force them to make the choice we want them to make. While I understand the point of view of the pro-creationists, I don't endorse it. I actively work against it.
If and when I do become pregnant, one of the things I intend to do is visit local crisis pregnancy centers. Since one of the first things they do is provide a pregnancy test, going in without a pregnancy wouldn't work. I intend to tell them that I am considering all my pregnancy options and even abortion (which, of course, I am not: I do not consider a minor bit of undercover lying to be morally equivalent to repeatedly lying to distraught women). I want to see if the local centers are as morally bankrupt as the ones I've heard about before. I am still open to being pleasantly surprised, but I doubt it'll happen. Of course, I'll need to avoid any centers being worked at by other doulas at the group (who know I'm trying to conceive), but I can't help but wonder: are these women, who other women are relying on as advocates and honest, helpful support during labor, lying to other pregnant women without shame or remorse?
I'd like to say I can't picture it. But I can, all too well. The divide between the two groups is so chilling on that subject. I could not trust a birth doula who also worked for a CPC. Mabe some people could. But I would never want to have anyone in charge of caring for my emotional or physical well-being who didn't respect my own bodily autonomy.
If you work in the birth world, or are otherwise a birth junkie, how do you view the split between these groups? Have you ever encountered it in a particularly nasty form? Have you ever figured out a way to heal that rift?
In some ways, this makes sense: extremes often meet up in some areas. Both the hippies and the Christians believe that birth is an event that needs more attention, and that giving birth is an event to be celebrated or even worshipped. The hippies believe it because of a fundamentally pro-women and pro-choice bent, the Christians do because of a fundamentally pro-creation one. This means that in most birth-related things, the two groups converge. When it comes to helping a woman have a safe and happy home birth, or making sure her doctor doesn't get too pushy, or mothering a new mother, it's very easy to be in the same position. But there's one issue where the two groups diverge radically.
That issue is abortion.
My housemate J and I often wish that we lived closer to an abortion clinic. Neither of us has personally had an abortion. However, we have respect for women's bodies and women's choices, and believe that in the absence of coercion women generally make the right choices for their lives and themselves. We would like to help at clinics, by being clinic escorts or even abortion doulas. I'll talk more about the practice of being a birth doula later (which is something I'm intending to start doing this year, exciting!) but essentially it means being a non-medical support person and advocate. Just as in birth, women who are aborting need someone to stand by them and be their representative and advocate during a difficult time. They may need someone to stay with them during the recovery phase, or need someone to run interference with clinic protesters. This is the sort of thing we could and would do if we lived near a clinic, but we don't. Small towns don't generally have an abortion clinic, and ours is no exception.
And on the other side, there are the Christians. They, too, believe very strongly in this issue. While I was at a meeting of doulas recently, several of the women who gravitated more toward the Christian, pro-creation side of this debate were talking rather excitedly about working at a crisis pregnancy center.
If you don't know what a crisis pregnancy center is, they're often listed as "abortion alternatives" in your Yellow Pages. They're also the places that put up those signs reading things like: "Pregnant? Scared? Need someone to talk to? Call us." Their stated purpose is to prevent abortions.
As a stated purpose, I don't think that's too bad. I certainly would like it if there were fewer abortions in this country, which is why I advocate comprehensive sex education and easy access to reliable contraception. No one (except perhaps a few very crazy internet people) wishes for more abortions. I believe many women are essentially forced into aborting because of financial circumstances, and that's a terrible, awful thing. That's why I support paid parental leave policies and more benefits for mothers. I want everyone to be able to make a choice about their childbearing independent of their personal finances (choices which also come into play in the hospital birth/home birth issue, which I'll talk about later). If crisis pregnancy centers worked with women to make sure their finances were adequate and help them with the costs and emotional issues of raising a child, I would support their mission.
But crisis pregnancy centers do not do that. Their goal is specifically preventing abortion at all costs. They lie to women, often telling them the old myth that abortion causes cancer or leads to infertility. They have uncertified ultrasound technicians doing ultrasounds and guilt tripping women who are already in a delicate emotional state. They tell women to come in for additional "counseling" appointments that are specifically to delay abortions -- which, because the cost and risk of abortion goes up every week of a pregnancy, is a good way to make abortion an untenable option for some women. Women are promised support in purchasing baby items, but this often amounts to a few onesies and a used piece of baby furniture. Some crisis pregnancy centers have even used women's personal information to track down their relatives and tell them about the unplanned pregnancy and the woman's intention of aborting, if they believe that the woman will go through with an abortion.
When your goal is preventing abortions at all costs, it makes sense to lie to women. The ends justify the means for the people working at crisis pregnancy centers. But I don't believe that we need to lie to vulnerable people, or force them to make the choice we want them to make. While I understand the point of view of the pro-creationists, I don't endorse it. I actively work against it.
If and when I do become pregnant, one of the things I intend to do is visit local crisis pregnancy centers. Since one of the first things they do is provide a pregnancy test, going in without a pregnancy wouldn't work. I intend to tell them that I am considering all my pregnancy options and even abortion (which, of course, I am not: I do not consider a minor bit of undercover lying to be morally equivalent to repeatedly lying to distraught women). I want to see if the local centers are as morally bankrupt as the ones I've heard about before. I am still open to being pleasantly surprised, but I doubt it'll happen. Of course, I'll need to avoid any centers being worked at by other doulas at the group (who know I'm trying to conceive), but I can't help but wonder: are these women, who other women are relying on as advocates and honest, helpful support during labor, lying to other pregnant women without shame or remorse?
I'd like to say I can't picture it. But I can, all too well. The divide between the two groups is so chilling on that subject. I could not trust a birth doula who also worked for a CPC. Mabe some people could. But I would never want to have anyone in charge of caring for my emotional or physical well-being who didn't respect my own bodily autonomy.
If you work in the birth world, or are otherwise a birth junkie, how do you view the split between these groups? Have you ever encountered it in a particularly nasty form? Have you ever figured out a way to heal that rift?
Saturday, June 14, 2008
My birth control odyssey
Before most women in American culture today embark upon their birth odyssey, they embark upon their birth control odyssey. Most of us do not have sex for the first time intending to get pregnant. I certainly didn't.
If I had, I would probably have gotten pregnant around age sixteen. My mother started having sex at fifteen, and most of the women in my family are known for having a relatively high number of sex partners -- something I do not consider shameful or worth hiding. Because of this history (I think there's some sort of genetic incredible sex drive in our women!), my mother talked to me about birth control for the first time when I was only thirteen.
Now, I'd known about birth control existing for a long time. My mother never made a secret of hers; it was in one of those cool plastic holders (they don't give them out with pill packs any more) and I even knew about the placebo week, since my mother never took those pills and I asked her why, once. But the first time we really talked about it, I was headed off to high school at a boarding school (no, we weren't rich -- my parents only paid $800/year for that school!). She knew that there would be opportunities, no matter how much the school said there wouldn't be, since it was, after all, co-educational. Frankly, at that age, while I had a somewhat active fantasy life and a fine sex life with myself, I was a little grossed out by the entire idea of sex. But my mother said: "If you ever need birth control, you let me know. I won't tell anyone, we'll go to the doctor and get it together. I'd rather you have sex with a boy you love and really care about and want to stay with, but even if you have sex with someone else, I will not ask questions, I will just get you the pills and condoms you need." I was embarrassed, but grateful. How many moms were like that? Not many, as I found out in high school: most girls' mothers were absolutely against getting them any kind of birth control.
The summer I turned sixteen and graduated high school, I went to the gynecologist's office for the first time. Because my mother had PCOS and because my weight was high, he diagnosed me with it as well (I am still uncertain of this diagnosis, especially since I believe I am ovulating and my cycles are regular like clockwork!). As a side effect of this diagnosis, he put me on my first birth control pills. Even though she'd always said she'd get them for me, I saw the look of worry cross over my mother's face as she gave me the first pill pack, saying that if I needed condoms, please let her know. I thought birth control would always be this easy to get. I was wrong.
I was on the pill through most of my early sex life, when I was sixteen and seventeen. But at age 18, jolted by a couple of unremembered pills and a brief but memorable pregnancy scare, I walked into a Planned Parenthood office in Northern California and requested Depo-Provera.
Now, there are horror stories about "the birth control shot," but my story wasn't so much horror as...simple growing dislike over time. The first two months of the shot saw me moodier than I had ever been, but over time that effect lessened. However, in the first year I was on the shot, I gained about 70 pounds and ended up at my current weight of approximately 330 at a height of 6', going from a size 20 to a size 26. It's worth noting that this was the year in my life I probably ate healthier than any other: lots of steamed vegetables, lots of fish (and sushi!), red meat only once a month or so, no processed or artificial foods, mostly organic produce. I also walked a mile each way to work for most of this time. The weight gain, as far as I can see in retrospect, was due to the shot. At the time, I blamed myself for not eating well enough, not exercising enough, but today I can see that I have remained at the same weight ever since that first year on the shot, regardless of my diet or exercise regimen.
And yet, I'm lucky. My sex drive didn't take a nosedive, as some women's have done on the shot. My depression lifted. My weight gain stopped. And because of that, I used the shot for several years.
It wasn't always easy. In one Planned Parenthood clinic, I was refused the shot because it had been one day more than the three months it's said to be valid for. That's right -- I was refused birth control because I was late with my birth control. Another time, in a private clinic, I was harangued by a doctor about my weight when I came in for a simple pelvic and birth control. Instead of asking about the Depo Provera and it possibly causing weight gain, or my history, he started saying that I clearly didn't need birth control, since I probably couldn't get a boyfriend. When I told him I in fact did have a boyfriend, one who had moved in that week, in fact, he said that I still wouldn't need the shot, since women as fat as me just couldn't have babies. I never felt so humiliated in my life. I ended up getting the shot, finally, after pleading and even crying. And after that, I ordered my Depo Provera shots from an online pharmacy where I didn't need a prescription, and had my boyfriend (now my husband) inject them for me. While I wouldn't recommend this option, it was the only one I felt like I had: I just couldn't face that doctor again, and he was the only one I could see with my insurance at the time.
Last year, I began to wonder if I'd want to have a baby soon. Knowing that Depo Provera can take months, sometimes even a year, to wear off, I decided to switch methods. After research, I came to the conclusion that the Nuvaring was a good option. I didn't want to have to remember daily pills, because I knew I'd forget sometimes. I didn't want a method that took a long time to reverse, and because I thought I might want to get pregnant in the relatively near future, I didn't want an invasive method like an IUD only to have it taken out a few months or a year in the future.
When I went to get the Nuvaring, the first clinic I went to (with the same gynecologist I had gone to for my first pelvic and pill pack) was quick and easy to get a ring from. I liked the way it didn't feel like anything and was easy to use without having to remember it daily. But when I came to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota to get more, the gynecologist pursed her lips when she looked at my health history. "We're not supposed to put women with a history of migraine on Nuvaring," she said. "We could put you on the mini-pill instead."
If you don't know anything about the mini-pill, let me enlighten you: they must be taken not only daily, but within a couple of hours of the same time every day. I don't have a schedule that even permits this, much less the patience or memory to commit to this. I looked at the gyno and flatly told her that if I used the minipill, the next time she saw me, it would be for a prenatal appointment, and that besides, I'd been using Nuvaring for nine months with zero side effects. She sighed and said: "well, if you're really convinced, okay, I guess, but I want to see you on something else soon."
She didn't ask me about my migraine triggers, or whether I had migraines related to my menstrual cycle. She didn't care that my body was happier on Nuvaring (which releases a lower amount of hormones than pills, and in a more targeted area) than on any other birth control.
To me, the most important thing about birth and women's bodies is choice. But what strikes me about my birth control odyssey is that, in many of these places, the only reason I had a choice at all is that I was pigheaded and stubborn. If I had stumbled out of the office of the fat-hating gynecologist crying and hurt, and had stopped using any birth control but condoms, or if I hadn't pointed out to Planned Parenthood the ridiculousness of refusing my shot because it had been too long since the last one, or if I had gone on the minipill as was not so subtly recommended by the most recent gynecologist I have seen, I have very little doubt I would already have had an unwanted pregnancy. Could I have decided to be abstinent? With my husband? For years? Really? That's not realistic. I made every attempt to be responsible about birth control and was still almost denied the birth control that worked for me and that was my informed choice, three different times for three different reasons in three different states with three different healthcare providers.
This is why I can't help but laugh at some of the "choice" and "responsibility" rhetoric that gets tossed around when talking about accidental and unplanned pregnancies. Choice needs to start before pregnancy. I am glad that the choice of whether to keep a pregnancy or not still (in most states, for women with a certain amount of privilege) resides with women. I wish that choice was available to everyone, regardless of location or socioeconomic status. And I am glad that I had the courage to fight for birth control whenever I've had to. When I have my own child, I want to be able to tell him or her: "I wanted you. I planned you. You were not an accident, even though if you had been, you'd have been a happy one. I made a choice that I wanted you to be here."
If I had, I would probably have gotten pregnant around age sixteen. My mother started having sex at fifteen, and most of the women in my family are known for having a relatively high number of sex partners -- something I do not consider shameful or worth hiding. Because of this history (I think there's some sort of genetic incredible sex drive in our women!), my mother talked to me about birth control for the first time when I was only thirteen.
Now, I'd known about birth control existing for a long time. My mother never made a secret of hers; it was in one of those cool plastic holders (they don't give them out with pill packs any more) and I even knew about the placebo week, since my mother never took those pills and I asked her why, once. But the first time we really talked about it, I was headed off to high school at a boarding school (no, we weren't rich -- my parents only paid $800/year for that school!). She knew that there would be opportunities, no matter how much the school said there wouldn't be, since it was, after all, co-educational. Frankly, at that age, while I had a somewhat active fantasy life and a fine sex life with myself, I was a little grossed out by the entire idea of sex. But my mother said: "If you ever need birth control, you let me know. I won't tell anyone, we'll go to the doctor and get it together. I'd rather you have sex with a boy you love and really care about and want to stay with, but even if you have sex with someone else, I will not ask questions, I will just get you the pills and condoms you need." I was embarrassed, but grateful. How many moms were like that? Not many, as I found out in high school: most girls' mothers were absolutely against getting them any kind of birth control.
The summer I turned sixteen and graduated high school, I went to the gynecologist's office for the first time. Because my mother had PCOS and because my weight was high, he diagnosed me with it as well (I am still uncertain of this diagnosis, especially since I believe I am ovulating and my cycles are regular like clockwork!). As a side effect of this diagnosis, he put me on my first birth control pills. Even though she'd always said she'd get them for me, I saw the look of worry cross over my mother's face as she gave me the first pill pack, saying that if I needed condoms, please let her know. I thought birth control would always be this easy to get. I was wrong.
I was on the pill through most of my early sex life, when I was sixteen and seventeen. But at age 18, jolted by a couple of unremembered pills and a brief but memorable pregnancy scare, I walked into a Planned Parenthood office in Northern California and requested Depo-Provera.
Now, there are horror stories about "the birth control shot," but my story wasn't so much horror as...simple growing dislike over time. The first two months of the shot saw me moodier than I had ever been, but over time that effect lessened. However, in the first year I was on the shot, I gained about 70 pounds and ended up at my current weight of approximately 330 at a height of 6', going from a size 20 to a size 26. It's worth noting that this was the year in my life I probably ate healthier than any other: lots of steamed vegetables, lots of fish (and sushi!), red meat only once a month or so, no processed or artificial foods, mostly organic produce. I also walked a mile each way to work for most of this time. The weight gain, as far as I can see in retrospect, was due to the shot. At the time, I blamed myself for not eating well enough, not exercising enough, but today I can see that I have remained at the same weight ever since that first year on the shot, regardless of my diet or exercise regimen.
And yet, I'm lucky. My sex drive didn't take a nosedive, as some women's have done on the shot. My depression lifted. My weight gain stopped. And because of that, I used the shot for several years.
It wasn't always easy. In one Planned Parenthood clinic, I was refused the shot because it had been one day more than the three months it's said to be valid for. That's right -- I was refused birth control because I was late with my birth control. Another time, in a private clinic, I was harangued by a doctor about my weight when I came in for a simple pelvic and birth control. Instead of asking about the Depo Provera and it possibly causing weight gain, or my history, he started saying that I clearly didn't need birth control, since I probably couldn't get a boyfriend. When I told him I in fact did have a boyfriend, one who had moved in that week, in fact, he said that I still wouldn't need the shot, since women as fat as me just couldn't have babies. I never felt so humiliated in my life. I ended up getting the shot, finally, after pleading and even crying. And after that, I ordered my Depo Provera shots from an online pharmacy where I didn't need a prescription, and had my boyfriend (now my husband) inject them for me. While I wouldn't recommend this option, it was the only one I felt like I had: I just couldn't face that doctor again, and he was the only one I could see with my insurance at the time.
Last year, I began to wonder if I'd want to have a baby soon. Knowing that Depo Provera can take months, sometimes even a year, to wear off, I decided to switch methods. After research, I came to the conclusion that the Nuvaring was a good option. I didn't want to have to remember daily pills, because I knew I'd forget sometimes. I didn't want a method that took a long time to reverse, and because I thought I might want to get pregnant in the relatively near future, I didn't want an invasive method like an IUD only to have it taken out a few months or a year in the future.
When I went to get the Nuvaring, the first clinic I went to (with the same gynecologist I had gone to for my first pelvic and pill pack) was quick and easy to get a ring from. I liked the way it didn't feel like anything and was easy to use without having to remember it daily. But when I came to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota to get more, the gynecologist pursed her lips when she looked at my health history. "We're not supposed to put women with a history of migraine on Nuvaring," she said. "We could put you on the mini-pill instead."
If you don't know anything about the mini-pill, let me enlighten you: they must be taken not only daily, but within a couple of hours of the same time every day. I don't have a schedule that even permits this, much less the patience or memory to commit to this. I looked at the gyno and flatly told her that if I used the minipill, the next time she saw me, it would be for a prenatal appointment, and that besides, I'd been using Nuvaring for nine months with zero side effects. She sighed and said: "well, if you're really convinced, okay, I guess, but I want to see you on something else soon."
She didn't ask me about my migraine triggers, or whether I had migraines related to my menstrual cycle. She didn't care that my body was happier on Nuvaring (which releases a lower amount of hormones than pills, and in a more targeted area) than on any other birth control.
To me, the most important thing about birth and women's bodies is choice. But what strikes me about my birth control odyssey is that, in many of these places, the only reason I had a choice at all is that I was pigheaded and stubborn. If I had stumbled out of the office of the fat-hating gynecologist crying and hurt, and had stopped using any birth control but condoms, or if I hadn't pointed out to Planned Parenthood the ridiculousness of refusing my shot because it had been too long since the last one, or if I had gone on the minipill as was not so subtly recommended by the most recent gynecologist I have seen, I have very little doubt I would already have had an unwanted pregnancy. Could I have decided to be abstinent? With my husband? For years? Really? That's not realistic. I made every attempt to be responsible about birth control and was still almost denied the birth control that worked for me and that was my informed choice, three different times for three different reasons in three different states with three different healthcare providers.
This is why I can't help but laugh at some of the "choice" and "responsibility" rhetoric that gets tossed around when talking about accidental and unplanned pregnancies. Choice needs to start before pregnancy. I am glad that the choice of whether to keep a pregnancy or not still (in most states, for women with a certain amount of privilege) resides with women. I wish that choice was available to everyone, regardless of location or socioeconomic status. And I am glad that I had the courage to fight for birth control whenever I've had to. When I have my own child, I want to be able to tell him or her: "I wanted you. I planned you. You were not an accident, even though if you had been, you'd have been a happy one. I made a choice that I wanted you to be here."
Friday, June 13, 2008
Pleasant surprise
I have been telling my friends about my plans for an unassisted birth, specifically to talk to people who are friendly before facing having to have the same talk with people who may be less likely to give me the benefit of the doubt. For the most part, men seem more scared of birth than women, and are a lot more likely to think it's really insane to birth at home, much less unassisted.
Except my friend T. I mentioned wanting to go unassisted, and his response was that it was awesome, and he'd never want to see any future wife of his get an episiotomy or c-section, and then asked if I was going to have a birth tub for a water birth.
I was just floored! Let's hear it for men who are educated about birth options!
Except my friend T. I mentioned wanting to go unassisted, and his response was that it was awesome, and he'd never want to see any future wife of his get an episiotomy or c-section, and then asked if I was going to have a birth tub for a water birth.
I was just floored! Let's hear it for men who are educated about birth options!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
"You must be pregnant."
My housemate J and I have a little inside joke we use at least a few times a week. If either of us mentions feeling the slightest bit out of the ordinary -- whether it's an intense craving for chocolate, or mild digestive problems, or fatigue -- the other says, "You must be pregnant."
We started saying it a year ago, because it's funny, when women have any sort of health issue that puts them a little out of homeostasis, it seems like it's a possible pregnancy symptom. Constipation? Could be pregnancy. Diarrhea? Pregnancy can do that. Energy boost? Probably pregnant. Tired constantly? Must be a baby on the way. If you read enough pregnancy boards, you'll see many people making all these different reports on what the first few weeks of their pregnancy felt like. Just about every symptom under the sun has been experienced, it would seem, and that makes sense: even if you actually had the flu, if you pee on a stick and test positive, you're likely to attribute your aching muscles and tired body to the pregnancy instead of a virus.
It's not just me. Or just J. It's some sort of female obsession. In the livejournal community vaginapagina, "am I pregnant?" posts have become something of a pastime. There are many more communities specifically devoted to the question. I'm not sure how the respondents are supposed to know. Tea leaves? Divination?
That might not be too far off. I signed up for a service called Liveperson to give natural childbirth advice and such (the rest of it is infested by OBs), and because of that I get emails whenever someone posts a request for advice to the forum. The most common questions are: "Will I ever get pregnant?" "What day and month will my child be born?" and "Am I infertile?" No additional information, ever, either. They want divination, reassurance. And it has to be divination, because the whole thing is based in magical thinking.
But the inside joke has become a bit saddening at this point, now that I'm actually trying (and she's joining in the fun next week with the removal of her Paragard IUD!). Because, you see, in the 'two week wait' between ovulation and menstruation, every symptom is obsessively looked for. If you do a web search for any random health issue in conjunction with early pregnancy, you're likely to get results. Everything gets blown out of proportion. A twingey ache in a breast for thirty seconds becomes "hmm, I wonder if I'm pregnant."
Inevitably, the symptoms add up into the semblance of a cohesive whole, and the pee stick is consulted, usually a few days before the expected start of menstruation. No, they don't always work then, but that's no obstacle when there's magical thinking involved. When the pee stick turns up negative, there's always the obsessive google searches for "never got positive preg test but was pregnant anyway" stories. When Aunt Flo finally arrives with her emotional baggage in tow, you can still comfort yourself with those stories about women who had nearly normal periods all throughout their pregnancy! The astronomical odds mean nothing in the face of the idea that one woman, somewhere, somehow, had a baby without having any symptoms at all until the damn thing was crowning.
So for now, it's all hurry up and wait. But a little obsession never hurt anyone. Maybe I'll go pee on a stick tomorrow.
We started saying it a year ago, because it's funny, when women have any sort of health issue that puts them a little out of homeostasis, it seems like it's a possible pregnancy symptom. Constipation? Could be pregnancy. Diarrhea? Pregnancy can do that. Energy boost? Probably pregnant. Tired constantly? Must be a baby on the way. If you read enough pregnancy boards, you'll see many people making all these different reports on what the first few weeks of their pregnancy felt like. Just about every symptom under the sun has been experienced, it would seem, and that makes sense: even if you actually had the flu, if you pee on a stick and test positive, you're likely to attribute your aching muscles and tired body to the pregnancy instead of a virus.
It's not just me. Or just J. It's some sort of female obsession. In the livejournal community vaginapagina, "am I pregnant?" posts have become something of a pastime. There are many more communities specifically devoted to the question. I'm not sure how the respondents are supposed to know. Tea leaves? Divination?
That might not be too far off. I signed up for a service called Liveperson to give natural childbirth advice and such (the rest of it is infested by OBs), and because of that I get emails whenever someone posts a request for advice to the forum. The most common questions are: "Will I ever get pregnant?" "What day and month will my child be born?" and "Am I infertile?" No additional information, ever, either. They want divination, reassurance. And it has to be divination, because the whole thing is based in magical thinking.
But the inside joke has become a bit saddening at this point, now that I'm actually trying (and she's joining in the fun next week with the removal of her Paragard IUD!). Because, you see, in the 'two week wait' between ovulation and menstruation, every symptom is obsessively looked for. If you do a web search for any random health issue in conjunction with early pregnancy, you're likely to get results. Everything gets blown out of proportion. A twingey ache in a breast for thirty seconds becomes "hmm, I wonder if I'm pregnant."
Inevitably, the symptoms add up into the semblance of a cohesive whole, and the pee stick is consulted, usually a few days before the expected start of menstruation. No, they don't always work then, but that's no obstacle when there's magical thinking involved. When the pee stick turns up negative, there's always the obsessive google searches for "never got positive preg test but was pregnant anyway" stories. When Aunt Flo finally arrives with her emotional baggage in tow, you can still comfort yourself with those stories about women who had nearly normal periods all throughout their pregnancy! The astronomical odds mean nothing in the face of the idea that one woman, somewhere, somehow, had a baby without having any symptoms at all until the damn thing was crowning.
So for now, it's all hurry up and wait. But a little obsession never hurt anyone. Maybe I'll go pee on a stick tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Unassisted? Really?
Somewhere in my boxes of books, I have a copy of the pregnancy/childbirth classic, "A Child Is Born." It's inscribed, "With love to our future obstetrician on her ninth birthday." The book has been read so much that I know every illustration and picture, from the crystallized testosterone to the surprised looks on the faces of the women in the hospital.
When other kids wanted to be astronauts, firefighters, or the President of the United States, I was firmly set in my desire to become an obstetrician. But that book was actually also the first thing that clued me in to the fact that something was rotten in the state of obstetrics.
In the edition of the book I owned, there was a photograph of a very, very pregnant woman, who was having her abdomen poked and prodded at to determine the position of the baby. That is all well and good. But the memory that sticks with me is her face. It is blank, a mask, like she's not really there in the room at all. The doctor is there with a baby -- a baby encased in irrelevant flesh. The woman, understanding that she has no place there, has simply...gone away.
As I was ten and eleven years old, I mimicked that face sometimes, thinking about the photograph. What kind of emotions would leave a person so blank at a time that was so important and -- I would imagine -- exciting? Birth seemed like such an expressive, emotional time that the images of sometimes sedated women giving birth also troubled me. The book seemed to take it for granted that pain in birth was unnecessary and could be gotten rid of with minimal trouble. Epidurals and TENS units were mentioned as pain relief measures, and the idea seemed to be that being in pain during birth was troubling, and possibly a little gauche.
Other books I read at the time reinforced my obstetric ambitions. Women who gave birth before the 20th century were always dying in childbirth, bleeding out, having babies get stuck. One of the Sweet Valley Saga books (which, as an avid young fan of the Sweet Valley High books, I read the month it came out) even reinforced this trope, with one of the characters bleeding to death slowly after birthing a healthy infant. Very rarely were there positive portrayals of birth, especially in literature for young people -- childbirth was punishment, blood, death. Birth was so tied up in sex, the sex that our society wants to shield children from at all costs, that it became something terrifying, a medical emergency.
At age thirteen, I had another experience that would change my views on pregnancy and birth. I watched the MGM movie Moll Flanders, which is a reasonably good movie for a bunch of other reasons, too. In that movie, the protagonist's husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her pregnant and alone. Rather than trust the doctors to deliver her baby, fearing that they might try to take it away from her for being poor and without a man, when she goes into labor, she gathers around the things that hold memories of him around her bed, and clings to the bedposts, changing positions, birthing her baby by candlelight without anyone else around. It's a very powerful, intense scene, and it left a lasting impression on me. For the film's protagonist, birth wasn't just an exercise in getting a baby out as quickly as possible. It was catharsis, healing, bringing the experience of life around full circle. This was a turning point. I had once thought of myself as very in favor of the medical advances that brought us sterilized childbirth. I was no longer so sure of myself.
The medical model of childbirth began to seem increasingly destructive and bad as I grew older. I found out that the rate of death in childbirth was actually quite low (though not as low as today, it is true) at most points in history, and actually only spiked when women started going to lying-in hospitals to birth. These hospitals had inadequate or nonexistent sanitation and ventilation, making them a breeding ground for the dangerous "childbed fever," which killed women a week or so after giving birth. Much of this was stopped when a few brave doctors decided to advocate -- of all things -- handwashing. But the sort of childbirth as immediate, horrible risk I had seen portrayed in every book, magazine, television show, and movie didn't exist. Birth wasn't that.
When I realized this, when I read more, I made a decision. Not only would I not go into obstetrics, I wouldn't have children. After all, the whole situation was wrong: babies coming into the world being immediately whisked away from mothers, mothers being ignored in the birth process. Why go through it? I didn't know there was an alternative. I thought, perhaps having a doctor come to my home, the way my grandfather and his generation were born, that might be okay. But no doctors perform housecalls now, and it's not like you could just stay in your home and have a baby -- right?
It took the internet to change what I thought about pregnancy and birth again. I read about babies being born in water, something which immediately appealed to my water-loving self (I often feel more at home in a swimming pool than out in the air!). Researching this led me to find out about the ongoing practice of midwifery, the natural birth movement, and the idea of homebirth. Reading further revealed more: birth centers that looked like homes, The Farm's midwifery and hippie ways, the hospitals trying to seem more homelike by adding big tubs to the L&D ward.
And then I saw it. Unassisted birth. It called to me, like very few things ever have. I'm not a "called to" type of person. I remembered the impact the movie I'd watched long ago had on me, remembered how the entire idea of giving birth in that way seemed somehow right. I read the stories of women who had given birth alone or with their partner and a few close friends, and I thought: yes. Yes, that is how it should be.
I'm not the kind of person to go in without research, though. So I researched everything. Complications, needed supplies, everything -- long before I had even given serious thought to getting pregnant. This year, when I decided I wanted to become pregnant, I reviewed it all. I will probably do so even more. My housemate and I are even seeking certification as childbirth educators, something which will probably relieve our respective husbands, who don't necessarily know much about birth other than the things we babble about incessantly.
So, unassisted birth it is. But as I was on my journey, my suspicious mind kept thinking: what if all these women telling these unassisted birth stories (which run the gamut from "that was great and also painless" to "it was agonizing but totally worth it") were really looking at their birth through rose colored glasses? What is birth like in the moment? These aren't questions we, as a society, even pay very much attention to, and it's hard to, anyhow. But they are the questions I wanted answered. I feel like, given the hormonal rush following an unmedicated birth, the recalled emotions of the mother may not be the actual emotions felt at that time. That is why, when I decided to get pregnant, I decided at the same time that, as much as I possibly could, I would liveblog the birth. Whether I type it myself (which is probable in early labor) or tell someone else to do it for me, I will provide updates as long as I can, as often as I can. I will be interested, as well, to see if my recalled feelings are the same as my actual, recorded feelings. Birth is real. I want my birth story to be as real as possible. I want to make it easier, maybe, for the next woman to say "I can do this."
When other kids wanted to be astronauts, firefighters, or the President of the United States, I was firmly set in my desire to become an obstetrician. But that book was actually also the first thing that clued me in to the fact that something was rotten in the state of obstetrics.
In the edition of the book I owned, there was a photograph of a very, very pregnant woman, who was having her abdomen poked and prodded at to determine the position of the baby. That is all well and good. But the memory that sticks with me is her face. It is blank, a mask, like she's not really there in the room at all. The doctor is there with a baby -- a baby encased in irrelevant flesh. The woman, understanding that she has no place there, has simply...gone away.
As I was ten and eleven years old, I mimicked that face sometimes, thinking about the photograph. What kind of emotions would leave a person so blank at a time that was so important and -- I would imagine -- exciting? Birth seemed like such an expressive, emotional time that the images of sometimes sedated women giving birth also troubled me. The book seemed to take it for granted that pain in birth was unnecessary and could be gotten rid of with minimal trouble. Epidurals and TENS units were mentioned as pain relief measures, and the idea seemed to be that being in pain during birth was troubling, and possibly a little gauche.
Other books I read at the time reinforced my obstetric ambitions. Women who gave birth before the 20th century were always dying in childbirth, bleeding out, having babies get stuck. One of the Sweet Valley Saga books (which, as an avid young fan of the Sweet Valley High books, I read the month it came out) even reinforced this trope, with one of the characters bleeding to death slowly after birthing a healthy infant. Very rarely were there positive portrayals of birth, especially in literature for young people -- childbirth was punishment, blood, death. Birth was so tied up in sex, the sex that our society wants to shield children from at all costs, that it became something terrifying, a medical emergency.
At age thirteen, I had another experience that would change my views on pregnancy and birth. I watched the MGM movie Moll Flanders, which is a reasonably good movie for a bunch of other reasons, too. In that movie, the protagonist's husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her pregnant and alone. Rather than trust the doctors to deliver her baby, fearing that they might try to take it away from her for being poor and without a man, when she goes into labor, she gathers around the things that hold memories of him around her bed, and clings to the bedposts, changing positions, birthing her baby by candlelight without anyone else around. It's a very powerful, intense scene, and it left a lasting impression on me. For the film's protagonist, birth wasn't just an exercise in getting a baby out as quickly as possible. It was catharsis, healing, bringing the experience of life around full circle. This was a turning point. I had once thought of myself as very in favor of the medical advances that brought us sterilized childbirth. I was no longer so sure of myself.
The medical model of childbirth began to seem increasingly destructive and bad as I grew older. I found out that the rate of death in childbirth was actually quite low (though not as low as today, it is true) at most points in history, and actually only spiked when women started going to lying-in hospitals to birth. These hospitals had inadequate or nonexistent sanitation and ventilation, making them a breeding ground for the dangerous "childbed fever," which killed women a week or so after giving birth. Much of this was stopped when a few brave doctors decided to advocate -- of all things -- handwashing. But the sort of childbirth as immediate, horrible risk I had seen portrayed in every book, magazine, television show, and movie didn't exist. Birth wasn't that.
When I realized this, when I read more, I made a decision. Not only would I not go into obstetrics, I wouldn't have children. After all, the whole situation was wrong: babies coming into the world being immediately whisked away from mothers, mothers being ignored in the birth process. Why go through it? I didn't know there was an alternative. I thought, perhaps having a doctor come to my home, the way my grandfather and his generation were born, that might be okay. But no doctors perform housecalls now, and it's not like you could just stay in your home and have a baby -- right?
It took the internet to change what I thought about pregnancy and birth again. I read about babies being born in water, something which immediately appealed to my water-loving self (I often feel more at home in a swimming pool than out in the air!). Researching this led me to find out about the ongoing practice of midwifery, the natural birth movement, and the idea of homebirth. Reading further revealed more: birth centers that looked like homes, The Farm's midwifery and hippie ways, the hospitals trying to seem more homelike by adding big tubs to the L&D ward.
And then I saw it. Unassisted birth. It called to me, like very few things ever have. I'm not a "called to" type of person. I remembered the impact the movie I'd watched long ago had on me, remembered how the entire idea of giving birth in that way seemed somehow right. I read the stories of women who had given birth alone or with their partner and a few close friends, and I thought: yes. Yes, that is how it should be.
I'm not the kind of person to go in without research, though. So I researched everything. Complications, needed supplies, everything -- long before I had even given serious thought to getting pregnant. This year, when I decided I wanted to become pregnant, I reviewed it all. I will probably do so even more. My housemate and I are even seeking certification as childbirth educators, something which will probably relieve our respective husbands, who don't necessarily know much about birth other than the things we babble about incessantly.
So, unassisted birth it is. But as I was on my journey, my suspicious mind kept thinking: what if all these women telling these unassisted birth stories (which run the gamut from "that was great and also painless" to "it was agonizing but totally worth it") were really looking at their birth through rose colored glasses? What is birth like in the moment? These aren't questions we, as a society, even pay very much attention to, and it's hard to, anyhow. But they are the questions I wanted answered. I feel like, given the hormonal rush following an unmedicated birth, the recalled emotions of the mother may not be the actual emotions felt at that time. That is why, when I decided to get pregnant, I decided at the same time that, as much as I possibly could, I would liveblog the birth. Whether I type it myself (which is probable in early labor) or tell someone else to do it for me, I will provide updates as long as I can, as often as I can. I will be interested, as well, to see if my recalled feelings are the same as my actual, recorded feelings. Birth is real. I want my birth story to be as real as possible. I want to make it easier, maybe, for the next woman to say "I can do this."
Why now?
There will be several posts today, because I want the posts to each be about one thing, instead of a sprawling mass of things. So the first major post I have is the answer to the question in the title: why now?
My bank accounts are empty (they won't be when I get financial aid money in August, but I digress). I'm a student, and getting respectable grades. Why would I want to throw everything into flux with a baby?
The answer is that I've given this a lot of thought. More thought than I've seen almost anyone put into this choice, except my housemate, J, who is still on the fence and may also begin her odyssey this year -- she may be more obsessive than me on this. I did a lot of research. The money situation will be tight, it's true. However, more services are available for mothers than for women without children. The state I live in is exceptionally generous with both health insurance and daycare assistance for children of low-income parents, including students like my husband and I. In fact, we would no longer have to purchase the overpriced and underutilized mandatory health insurance from our university, saving us about $2000 per year.
I do not feel guilty or bad about needing to use these state services. In my opinion, they are exactly for women in situations like mine -- who are trying to better their lives, working toward a degree or a better job, who need some temporary assistance. I believe that, if anything, the state should ensure more services for women (both low-income and otherwise) so that reproductive choice is truly about choices, rather than about the best of several difficult options. If you have an issue with me using state services, or conceiving voluntarily in full knowledge of needing them, I will note that I will pay income taxes to the United States for the rest of my adult life, starting in three years, when I graduate from college. I will be a teacher, so I know my degree will be immediately useful in getting a job. I am taking from "the system." I will give back to it one day soon. If you still have problems with that, I highly advise just leaving this blog, since I will be discussing the trials and tribulations of getting these services as well.
The main expenses of childrearing, in the first several years, are diapers, food, medical expenditures, and daycare. However, even if I conceived today (which, I suppose, could happen), my child would only be two years old when I graduate. Six months of that, I intend to exclusively breastfeed. For the remainder, I will still breastfeed, but I will also do what my own mother did, making frozen baby food and sourcing as much as possible from farmer's markets and other places I can trust to be grown sustainably and without unnecessary chemicals. I am intending to use cloth diapers, and when I find out I am pregnant, I will be purchasing two or three one-size-fits-all cloth diapers (a genius invention!) per month throughout the pregnancy, so that I have a stash when the baby is born. My housemate who is also probably going to try to conceive is working with me to get other baby items from garage sales, thrift stores, and Craigslist.
So my question is: why not now? I have spent the last several years in various positions of responsibility with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. I feel very prepared to deal with a child, and because my plans after graduation are currently set to involve travel and semi-permanent residence on another continent, I would prefer to have a baby here in the U.S. rather than waiting to have it in China. I have a support network here that would help me through the most difficult parts of childbirth and infancy, a support network I will be unlikely to have elsewhere.
I have wanted to have a baby for about four years. It is very likely, given family history, that I could miscarry once or twice before successfully carrying a pregnancy to term. Given these things, I think waiting longer would be silly. I feel emotionally and psychologically ready for parenthood. If I wait for the perfect circumstances, the perfect time, it may never come. Why not try now?
My bank accounts are empty (they won't be when I get financial aid money in August, but I digress). I'm a student, and getting respectable grades. Why would I want to throw everything into flux with a baby?
The answer is that I've given this a lot of thought. More thought than I've seen almost anyone put into this choice, except my housemate, J, who is still on the fence and may also begin her odyssey this year -- she may be more obsessive than me on this. I did a lot of research. The money situation will be tight, it's true. However, more services are available for mothers than for women without children. The state I live in is exceptionally generous with both health insurance and daycare assistance for children of low-income parents, including students like my husband and I. In fact, we would no longer have to purchase the overpriced and underutilized mandatory health insurance from our university, saving us about $2000 per year.
I do not feel guilty or bad about needing to use these state services. In my opinion, they are exactly for women in situations like mine -- who are trying to better their lives, working toward a degree or a better job, who need some temporary assistance. I believe that, if anything, the state should ensure more services for women (both low-income and otherwise) so that reproductive choice is truly about choices, rather than about the best of several difficult options. If you have an issue with me using state services, or conceiving voluntarily in full knowledge of needing them, I will note that I will pay income taxes to the United States for the rest of my adult life, starting in three years, when I graduate from college. I will be a teacher, so I know my degree will be immediately useful in getting a job. I am taking from "the system." I will give back to it one day soon. If you still have problems with that, I highly advise just leaving this blog, since I will be discussing the trials and tribulations of getting these services as well.
The main expenses of childrearing, in the first several years, are diapers, food, medical expenditures, and daycare. However, even if I conceived today (which, I suppose, could happen), my child would only be two years old when I graduate. Six months of that, I intend to exclusively breastfeed. For the remainder, I will still breastfeed, but I will also do what my own mother did, making frozen baby food and sourcing as much as possible from farmer's markets and other places I can trust to be grown sustainably and without unnecessary chemicals. I am intending to use cloth diapers, and when I find out I am pregnant, I will be purchasing two or three one-size-fits-all cloth diapers (a genius invention!) per month throughout the pregnancy, so that I have a stash when the baby is born. My housemate who is also probably going to try to conceive is working with me to get other baby items from garage sales, thrift stores, and Craigslist.
So my question is: why not now? I have spent the last several years in various positions of responsibility with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. I feel very prepared to deal with a child, and because my plans after graduation are currently set to involve travel and semi-permanent residence on another continent, I would prefer to have a baby here in the U.S. rather than waiting to have it in China. I have a support network here that would help me through the most difficult parts of childbirth and infancy, a support network I will be unlikely to have elsewhere.
I have wanted to have a baby for about four years. It is very likely, given family history, that I could miscarry once or twice before successfully carrying a pregnancy to term. Given these things, I think waiting longer would be silly. I feel emotionally and psychologically ready for parenthood. If I wait for the perfect circumstances, the perfect time, it may never come. Why not try now?
This is a blog made in hope and with more than a bit of anxiety.
As of three months ago, I made a decision to try to become pregnant. I am many things that make people say, "maybe you shouldn't do this. Maybe you should wait." I am poor. I am fat. I am a college student (though a non-traditional student, at age 24). I am married, but polyamorous.
And this blog is for my journey, however long or short it may be. It will, with a little luck, culminate in something I have not yet seen online: a liveblogging of an unassisted, natural home birth.
If you have questions about unassisted birth, feel free to ask. I hope that this will be a learning experience both for myself and for those women (or men) reading this blog and questioning their own preconceptions about conception, pregnancy, and birth.
Let us begin.
As of three months ago, I made a decision to try to become pregnant. I am many things that make people say, "maybe you shouldn't do this. Maybe you should wait." I am poor. I am fat. I am a college student (though a non-traditional student, at age 24). I am married, but polyamorous.
And this blog is for my journey, however long or short it may be. It will, with a little luck, culminate in something I have not yet seen online: a liveblogging of an unassisted, natural home birth.
If you have questions about unassisted birth, feel free to ask. I hope that this will be a learning experience both for myself and for those women (or men) reading this blog and questioning their own preconceptions about conception, pregnancy, and birth.
Let us begin.
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