The Amazing Truth About Hospital Birth, Part II

We had so much positive feedback about our last post that we thought we'd do another to share some of the beautiful hospital birth photos we received!

The Amazing Truth About Hospital Birth: A Pictorial Display

An answer to "The Amazing Truth About Homebirth: A Pictorial Display." You don't have to have a baby at home to be blissfully happy!

What's really routine?

Our friends at Safer Midwifery for Michigan have a terrific "Ask an OB" post today about "routine" interventions. I think this is a really important post, because many of the things I see women worrying about (like routine episiotomies) are really not done anymore.

It's OK to be broken

New post on my personal blog about feeling like your body is defective because of how you gave (or will give) birth.

Laboring under misconceptions

Have you seen this going around on Facebook yet? I saw it the other day, and it really ticked me off:

"Can I labor over there?
Can I labor on the chair?
No! No labor over there!
Don’t labor on the chair!
Sit there, sit there, you will see,
You must labor with this IV!
I do not like this sharp IV!
I need to move, to dance, to pee!
...Doctor, Doctor, let me be;
Say, get your pesky hands off me!
No! You can’t move, or dance, or pee!
You must labor with this IV!
Not over there, not on the chair,
Not with the ball, you’ll have a fall!
Can I labor with a doula?
Can I use some calendula?
Can I labor on hands and knees?
Can I birth just how I please?
No! Not with a doula!
No – what’s calendula?
Lay back, lay back, count to ten,
Breathe – he he hoo – push again!
No thank you, doctors, nurse, and crew,
I’ll go and labor without you.
I’ll labor here, I’ll labor there!
In the shower – everywhere!
I’ll labor standing, squatting, sitting
I’ll labor on my couch while knitting!
I’ll have a doula –I’ll have three!
They’ll let me eat and bring me tea.
Try them! Try them! You will see!
You can go shove that darn IV."
- author unknown

This is in no way representative of my three birth experiences in a hospital, or of the stories submitted here, and it irks me that this is being passed around as what typically happens at a hospital. (I'm not saying that it never does, but I have yet to have a woman relate an experience like this to me that happened more recently than the 1970s.)

The part that struck me as funny about this is that I specifically did all of those things in my last labor, with Natalie -- I asked for a birth ball, and they brought me one promptly.  I asked to be in the shower, and they happily unhooked my IV (I was GBS-positive) so I could go stand in there as long as I liked. I didn't have a doula, because I didn't want or need one, but I had one at my first birth, and everyone was very welcoming of her. I don't recall sitting in a chair, but I DO recall doing some bellydancing-type hip circles quite a lot. I pushed when and how I wanted, in the position I wanted. And yes, I most certainly peed. (Good lord, where is this hospital that doesn't let laboring women PEE, for crying out loud?)

If you are passing around this sort of thing, please call and find out what your local hospital actually DOES. If they are not allowing laboring women out of bed, and most particularly if they are not letting them even PEE, then take it up with them -- please. You have my blessing. Heck, drop me a line, and I'll write them a letter, too.

But please be aware that hospitals that have these sorts of policies are the tiny, tiny minority nowadays in the U.S., and you are in great likelihood spreading misinformation in the name of "educating" women.

Join me on Facebook!

I totally forgot to share this! I recently started a Facebook page for Happy With Hospital Birth -- come join us!

My talk with Kelli of Birth Stories on Demand

I had a wonderful time talking the other day with Kelli, fellow Michigander and host of Birth Stories on Demand, for her radio show! We talked about how this blog started, plus lots of other stuff (especially regarding the homebirth movement), and had some callers -- yay!

You can check it out here or download it here on iTunes. No making fun of our Upper Midwest accents allowed!

Hey, check it out!

We were featured on Frugal Dad's Top Parenting Blogs! Thanks, Frugal Dad!

(Sorry I haven't been updating more frequently -- Miss Natalie has been crawling for a few months now, and is THE biggest troublemaker! I'm getting quite a backlog of stories, so I'm hoping to get some up here soon.)

Why this blog began

When I had my first baby, I did a lot of reading about birth, true to my tendency to research things to death. I particularly loved "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" and all the groovy birth stories. (The book contained plenty of talk about "cold, sterile" hospitals, too.)

I was in a crunchy state of mind and really wanted to have my son at home or, at the minimum, at a birth center. My husband wasn't on board, though, and neither was our insurance company. I agreed to a hospital birth ... but at that point, I had heard a lot about what "they" would do to me and our baby (or not "let" me do), and frankly, I was scared. As it turned out, my oldest son's birth (pictured) was a beautiful experience ... and so was my second son's ... and my daughter's.

Frankly, after my first birth, I like I'd been duped. What had I spent so much time being afraid of? The nurses were kind. The doctors were kind. When my oldest had trouble breastfeeding and the lactation consultant wasn't there (it was Easter), a helpful nurse worked with me again and again and again till we had things figured out. (One nurse even drove to our house to bring us some things we'd inadvertently left at the hospital after we went home!) No one pressured us to give him a bottle or pacifier, or made a big deal when we declined the hepatitis B vaccine (which we later gave him) or circumcision. And this wasn't some progressive big-city hospital, either -- it was just an average hospital in an average Midwestern city.

As time went by and I had more babies, and my friends had babies, I became disillusioned with the "trust birth" mantra I heard from so many in the natural childbirth community. I saw women who felt their bodies were "defective" because they hadn't had perfect labors. I read about babies born too far from help, or into the hands of unqualified attendants who didn't recognize problems. And yet I continued to hear how awful hospitals were -- chock-full of OBs who just want to make their tee times and are itching to cut you open.

So, when someone on a community of like-minded women -- who believe more in respecting birth than trusting it -- said, "Where are all the positive hospital birth stories online?", I thought that we needed a place to share them. This is that place.