The Glory of Birthing

So, while my future husband and wonderful daughter sleep in the other room, I'm doing (my) "crack". I'm watching birthing videos. I have NO idea why my heart, soul and mind feel it necessary (yes, it is seriously NECESSARY) for me to watch other amazing women birth their children. I can't and usually won't willingly watch a hospital or medicated birth...they are always either unassisted, in water, somewhere exotic, orgasmic, painless...or like one empowering one: ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!

Anyone close to me know just how passionate I am about childbirth and women's rights to happy birthing. I'm not going to lie, the birth of my daughter sucked. I blame many of my troubles on her birth. It was forced, medicated, rushed, stressed, and just WRONG. Had I been at home, I doubt I would have been so angry at Dan afterwards. Had I been at home, I doubt I would have waddled out of the hospital with 20+ stitches that STILL cause pain. Had I been at home, my daughter wouldn't have had heart decells because of the insanely high Pitocin. Had I been at home, I wouldn't have felt the need for an epidural. Had I been at home, I would have had more support from everyone. Had I been at home I would have been a breastfeeder. Had I been at home I would have bonded quicker with my child. All these things I feel were taken away from me by my hospital birth. My OB wasn't caring enough, the nurses had no compassion and Dan was so tense being in a hospital he slept through the entire thing. I wish I would have known that people CAN birth at home. I would have had my daughter in my home, and it would have been amazing. I know that. I wish someone who have pulled my arm and said, "Hey, girl, what the frick are you doing? Stop that pitocin, take out that epidural and MOVE AROUND!!" I remember laying in the bed, on my left side-the same position I had been in for probably close to 5 hours. I ran the nurses multiple times and no came. I yelled for Dan and he didn't stir. I threw everything I had within arms reach at him trying to get some support...nothing. I sat there in my self-pity and cried. I remember laying there thinking that I was somehow broken and that if I moved I would be whisked into surgery for my C-Section because Madelyn's heartrate would drop. I felt like I had done something wrong, I felt alone. I remember my mind telling me that my body wanted to be on my hands and knees birthing like they used to. I couldn't move. My body tried to tell me to just wiggle my hips, to sway back and forth. I'll never forget that moment.

I remember feeling so helpless when they told me I was complete. I was relieved it was over and was excited to meet my daughter but I was scared out of my mind. I didn't want to be on the bed in the half-reclined, leg-in-stir ups position. I wanted to squat. I wanted to squat like I used to in my living room while I daydreamed of my perfect childbirth. But no, there I was being yelled to "INHALE! EXHALE! PUUUSH!!! 1-2-3-4..." and thinking to myself "I AMMMMMM pushing now get your fucking hands off my crotch and let me do this!!!!!" I remember bringing my focus to my pelvis and pushing...and the pressure moving all the way up my body and into my face. I wasn't at "10" yet but I let out my breath only to be given a look from the nurse that I had just failed the marathon. I exhaled, and that meant the race was over, I was the loser. It was that point I became pissed. I wanted the baby out NOW so everyone would stop yelling at me. I felt the tearing, I felt the pain but I pushed through it. I wanted the yelling to stop. I wanted everyone to stop touching me and to leave me alone. I wanted it to end. Looking back, I thought it was the actual birth I wanted to end but I know now it wasn't that it all. I wanted the doctors and nurses to end. I want to birth naturally but felt trapt. I hated it.

What hurt worse that the lonliness and mistreatment was the agony I felt after my daughter was born. She was thrown onto my belly like a rag doll. I put my hand against her back and couldn't believe she was mine. My first words were, "she's so tiny!" Nurses and pediatricians were rubbing my precious daughter with these scratchy towels. I just held her tighter to protect her against that. There was no need for that, she was breathing. And just as fast as they threw her on me, they ripped her from my arms. I laid there on the bed holding back tears for my poor "sick" baby. I felt miserable. I felt that I had failed as her...womb. I must have done something wrong! What did I do to make her early? All these things went through my head as I watched her being "beat-up" by the rough nurses and their scratchy towels. They shoved things in her mouth and gave her oxygen. My baby is fine, she just wants her mom! Why are you being so rough? Don't poke her with that! I couldn't believe that hospital protocol thinks that weighing a baby is more important than mother-child bonding. If she was stable enough to get weighed, poked, prodded, and jabbed, she was well enough for her mother to actually get to see what she freaking LOOKED like. They whisked her to the NICU while I sat in my room shaking and crying. I won't forget the moment when Dan sat in bed with me while I sobbed uncontrollably over the baby I hardly even got to touch. She was in my belly for 34 weeks...then just stolen from me. My epidural began to wear off and someone had the cruel joke to tell me I had to pee before I could go see my daughter. I tried to get up, not really having to go, hoping that I could go see her. My knees didn't work. I had to sit in bed and wait. I laid in the uncomfortable bed I was in for the last 19 or so hours watching nothing but the seconds tick past on the clock. My daughter needs me. My daughter needs me. My daughter needs me. It played in my head over, and over, and over as my heart broke and broke and broke. I ran the nurses again and said I wanted to try. My legs still didn't work. I didn't have to go to the bathroom, I just wanted to see my baby. Instead of compassion and understanding I was told that I MUST pee RIGHT NOW or they were going to put a catheter in. I don't remember hearing about womening DYING from holding in their pee??? They brought in a bed pan and I was treated like a freakin' jail inmate or dog at the vet. I peed in the pan, and was offered no toilet paper or my squirt bottle of water. Thank you bitch nurses for making me feel just so damn lucky to be under your TENDER LOVING CARE. I brought a wheelchair and was "allowed" to go see my daughter. There she was. Completely helpless in nothing but a diaper. I touched her hair, her toes, her belly. I touched the little bump that was where her rib cage meets in the middle. I wiped the bubbles from her mouth. I kissed her all over and just wanted to cry. I wanted to hold her so bad. I remember standing, in severe pain, with both arms under each side of my sick baby. I wanted to hold her so bad but heaven forbid she be warmed by her mother's flesh and not some artificial heat lamp. She's not a baby chicken for Pete's sake! For days I just felt so torn from my child. I was told my endless nurses that "she was too weak to nurse" and to "not even bother". Thanks guys, you really did a bang-up job of helping a new mom with breastfeeding. I pumped for about 2 months and gave up. I regret it to this day. My daughter will nuzzle against my chest and I wish it was because she was nursing. I'm so sorry, Madelyn, that I wasn't strong enough to try harder. I'll never forget that time that you DID nurse.

From my moment of realization, I have made a promise to my womb, my scarred birth canal, my future children and myself that I will NEVER birth a child in a hospital again. Do you hear me?!?!? I WILL NEVER ALLOW A BIRTH IN A HOSPITAL.I'm not thinking about the possibility of a premature baby. I will not allow it. I will not allow anyone to brainwash me into thinking I'm doing harm by not going to the hospital. I will not allow myself to think of the "risks" because I will NOT BIRTH IN A HOSPITAL. A happy and healthy birth is all I can get. That's it. No ifs, ands, or buts, about it. I will have a HAPPY birth next time.
I will birth my babies on my hands and knees.
Or any other position I see fit.
I will sway my hips and move around.
No, you may NOT check my cervix for the third time in an hour.
No, you may NOT deny my human right to food and water.
Don't you dare think about breaking my water to "speed things along"!
No, you may not use forceps or a vacuum? Have you lost your marbles?!?!
No "DOCTOR" you may not catch my baby. I'll be taking care of that myself.
No you may not cut its cord...that's WRONG. Research the benefits of delayed cord cutting and you will be stunned.
No, you may not take my child away to weigh it and all that.
No, you may not scrub the vernix off my child with a sandpaper towel.
No may not touch THEIR placenta!
No I don't want Pitocin to get said placenta out.
No I won't allow you to put my baby in a blanket. They need skin to skin contact.
And yes, bitch-ass nurses I'm going to nurse my child until THEY wean.

I am capable and able to birth my children. I am capable and able to nurse my children. I am a women and that is what women do. I TRUST MY BODY.

How long are we, as women, going to allow the doctors to sit there and tell us that our bodies don't know how to birth our children? That our bodies can't get the "too big" kid out? That we NEED pain relief? That our bodies won't "go into labor"? We're being lied to. There's no "time limit" for labor. There's no reason to get your kid out in 2 pushes. There's no reason you can't eat. There's no reason you can't drink. This is just so freakin' wrong...

It's not okay to use Pitocin just because the doctor is anxious to get home.
It's not okay for them to insist on pain meds or for them to see that as the norm.
It's not okay for the C-Section rate to be as high as it is.

I wish I had known better.
I wish I would have not allowed them to do the things they did to me or my daughter. I hope more and more women realize, and feel empowered, that our bodies are MADE to give birth. You were born with everything you need in order to birth your babies. You can do it....without Pitocin, without being on your back, without hospitals, without doctors, without IV's, without epidurals, no vacuums, no this, no that.

"Birth Day" and "A Baby Story".....That is not how childbirth SHOULD be. Women are missing out. They are not dying. They are not sick. You are doing, by far, the most empowering and....amazing....thing in the world. It's a right of passage. You have just grown and nurtured a child for 9 months....you are now bringing that child into the world. Nothing in the world can compare. Women deserve to be able to lay in their own beds going, "Oh my god. I just...gave birth to a child." And to know deep down that they, on their own, did this. Women are amazing. Childbirth is amazing. No, each and every women is obviously not the first-or the last-women to birth a child......but that makes it no less of a miracle.

I'm done being lied to by the media and the medical society. I'm ready for a change and I will make one happen for myself, and my future.

My daughter is two and *almost* a half, and I still think about my birth with her. I think about what I would have done differnt, in what ways I was blessed and what I can do about it now. That, darling reader, is just a glimpse of why I cringe when I hear about a women birthing in a hospital and why I am so passionate about natural birth. I NEVER want another women to go through that again. While I cannot stop it all together, all alone, I can do my part to educate the women around me.