I know, I know. I shouldn’t read Mamamia. I’m pretty sure it is the online equivalent to Today Tonight and A Current Affair, both of which will make your brain cells commit seppaku in protest. But of course, Mamamia is the best troll* website of the lot of them, and I’ve been sucked in like everyone else.
[*Proper definition of a Troll: Someone online who seeks to incite argument, to shock, to cause uproar. See here.]
The debate this week is all about Birthzillas. You know, those crunchy hippy women who bury their placenta under a tree and care about birthing without drugs. Those women that Mia labels “smug and superior”, forgetting that in the same article she was acting just as smug and holier than thou for wanting a legion of doctors at her command.
And here’s where I clarify that I am not judging anyone’s birth choices. I would love all women to have the birth that feels best for them, with the outcome being a happy one. C-section, epidural, home birth, water birth, midwives – I don’t CARE how you birth.
I do however, reserve the right to care about how I birth.
When my first child was born, I went into that delivery suite with no expectations. In fact, that was my entire birth plan. I hadn’t prepared myself for anything, because anything could happen. Surely that’s a good thing right? An open mind about the whole process?
Unfortunately, I was 17 and despite having a loving and supportive partner by my side the whole time, the midwife and doctor who helped me birth seemed bent on making it a “lesson” on why teenagers should not get pregnant. There was no calming influence, no discussion and when it came to getting my daughter out, I was given an episiotomy and a ventouse extraction, while the doctor screamed at me and the the midwife tut-tutted. My entire labour was a bit over 7 hours long and full of more trauma that I ever thought possible.
They left the student OB-GYN to stitch me up afterwards, while I lay in the delivery bed, legs in stirrups, listening to her curse as she re-did my stitches three times. It was her first perineal repair.
It took me twelve months to heal from the episiotomy. That’s twelve months to heal enough to have intercourse without pain, or to urinate without discomfort.
When I fell pregnant with my second child, I was determined to have a better birth. Still scarred from my first experience, I set out to educate myself as much as possible about everything that could go wrong, so that in my own mind, I was more prepared than the first time. I read midwifery blogs, L&D nurse blogs and as much about the natural processes of birth as possible.
I decided I didn’t want to birth with drugs if I could help it and that my birth needed to be as low intervention as possible, not just for my and the baby’s health, but for my own sanity. I saw a supportive midwifery team and despite a pregnancy that seemed likely to have a poor outcome, I birthed my son in hospital, in a calm environment, with two midwives attending and Nathan holding my hands.
No stitches, no stirrups, no screaming, no loss of control and bodily autonomy. The midwife told me afterwards that she was honoured to have witnessed my birth and help deliver my son.
Now I’m pregnant with our third child and determined to have the birth I want again. It may not go to plan – I have fast labours and we have a backup plan if I physically cannot make it to the hospital. This time however, I have a medical reason for needing a low intervention birth.
Turns out I have a rare connective tissue disorder, that affects my collagen. Among other things, I don’t heal easily or well, my joints dislocate and my blood pressure has an alarming habit of dropping dramatically, making me dizzy enough to vomit and pass out.
These things are not conducive to high-intervention births. If, for instance, I was to have a caesarean, it’s likely I would end up in a wheelchair for a good while after birth. An epidural would have the potential to drop my blood pressure low enough to cause serious damage and an episiotomy, as I’ve already discovered, takes a long long time to heal.
As I creep closer to the point where I will birth this third child of mine, I am well aware of my condition and how it will affect my birth. My midwives and doctors have also been appraised of this – but it’s not their job to manage my Ehlers Danlos. Their job is helping me deliver a healthy baby, while not landing me in a wheelchair. My job is to provide them with the information for them to be able to do this, while keeping the baby and I safe.
This is why I have a birth plan and a more-than-passing need for a natural birth. Not because I am a birthzilla, but because I am educated about my choices and the consequences of them.
So before Mia makes a sweeping judgement about all women who want to give birth naturally, based on a trite dinner party anecdote, maybe she ought to educate herself about WHY women make the decisions they do.
It’s not all black and white Mia.
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