Posts Tagged ‘natural birth’

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Mar 10th, 2010

On 17th February, at 00.27 am, Sara Emma Peatey arrived into the world.

This is the last of a trilogy of articles related to this life changing event to bring closure to this chapter of my life and, of course, start a new one! (read The Miracle of Birth and 5 Questions While Waiting For A Baby).

I’m not one for sentimentality and I certainly do not enjoy hearing baby stuff from others. I love my three kids more than anything, but I draw the line at extending that beyond my blood family.

I’ve heard plenty of men say ‘what an amazing experience’ it is to be present at birth. I was present at Sara’s birth, and throughout labour, as I was with my first two daughters. It’s definitely an honour to be there when new life enters the world, but I can’t say I understand the ‘amazing experience’ when applied to the rest of it.

Am I a freak to be glad I don’t have to experience it myself and to say the whole thing is actually quite unpleasant?

A quick recap

Mona decided she wanted as natural a birth as possible which in many cultures is perfectly well supported and even expected. Natural, for us, meant no intervention – unless absolutely necessary for the safety of mother or child. No chemicals, hospitals, cutting or any other ‘improvements’ on the well-designed-by-nature system for delivering new life into the world.

This was always going to be challenging in a country where 90% of birth is by planned Caesarian, it’s generally assumed you must be a masochist if you choose natural birth and where breastfeeding is considered to be for those who can’t afford formula!

Right time

Everything happens at the right time

Sara was due on 9th February by the doctors’ calculations but Mona’s innner guide told her it was going to be 31st January.

Both days came and went, which just proves that neither doctors nor inner guides know everything and babies do exactly what they want, when they want!

Now I’ve never been pregnant so I don’t know first hand what it feels like. From my observations of mothers, the physical side gets more and more uncomfortable as the last month passes. Everything takes longer with the extra bulk. Sleeping is difficult. You start to forget what it felt like to be not-pregnant. Water starts to get retained in places it’s never been retained before. The growing baby makes its presence felt with greater vigour.

No matter how much you want to just get on with life as normal, it becomes less and less possible and more and more frustrating. I’m just waiting on the sidelines. Unable to do anything other than take care of the apartment and reluctant to start anything of significance, not knowing when the big event will happen.

What I do know is that giving birth itself is very painful and no amount of Hollywood ’30 seconds of pushing and they’re out’ can change the reality of it. You have to be very frustrated to want that! Indeed by the time the day came Mona was so frustrated she was desperate to give birth – pain and everything.

The right time was 00.27 on 17th February 2010.

How do I know?

Because that’s when she was born!

Right way

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray

Our beautiful vision of natural, home birth and providing a warm, cozy welcome for the little one lay in tatters. It was very hard to let go of this vision but when faced with potentially life or death situations, stubbornness is not always a very helpful trait.

The first part of labour was manageable. I kept out of the way, bobbing in and out when I felt I could be helpful and, according to our midwife, it was a text-book labour.

Until it stopped being so. The story moved to those dreaded final chapters of the text book and the pages about the things that can go wrong.

Basically the labour froze.

For 6 hours the contractions had no effect at all – unless you count the excrutiating agony. They should have been pushing the baby, opening the way and moving to that final stage of ‘Push …. Push … PUUUUUSHHHHH!’

If you’ve been there yourself you’ll remember counting the centimetres (or inches). We got stuck at 5cm and even I can work out that 5cm is not enough. Babies are small – but not that small!

So off we went to hospital.

For Mona it was a desire to get some relief from the pain.

For the midwife it was a desire to be closer to the technology available to help in these rarer situations.

And for me? I hate hospitals – but I’m not the one with a baby inside my body trying to get out.

After a little more waiting and hoping that things will start to move along naturally it becomes clear there will to be no easy way out. No-one seems to know why things are stuck – but stuck they are.

It’s close to midnight and we’re presented with a choice. Continue with a long, painful labour that’s likely to end in an emergency C-section or …. skip the painful part and go straight for the C-section. The staff leave to allow us to have a moment to discuss what we want to do.

I’m starting to appreciate how the baby feels right now – stuck and very small. Mona even more so.

30 minutes later we’re in the middle of the scenario we most wanted to avoid.

Mona is strapped to the table, surrounded by machines and what could be an entire soccer team all wearing masks. There are tubes, needles, scalpels and suddenly the baby is pulled out and whisked away by strangers.

Every cell in my body is screaming this is WRONG! I forget to breathe as I’m trying to comfort Mona who is shaking and crying. This is as invasive and impersonal as you can get.

I have to leave, I’m almost fainting. I feel so utterly helpless.

But.

This is the right way.

How do I know?

Because the cord was wrapped several times around the baby, making it impossible for her to be born the way nature intended. If it was not for the invention of the C-section, probably neither mother nor child would have lived to see the dawn.

All Right Now

All’s well that ends well

This whole experience taught me several very important things I was maybe missing before:

1 I have very little control

I knew this already and it’s been proved to me over and over again but I’d pushed it to one side for the last months and thought I could decide how things would be when it came to the birth. In reality I control nothing. I can help things along, ease the path and gently steer direction. Any illusion that I am in control, though, is just that – an illusion.

2 Humility

Honestly speaking I had very little respect for doctors or the whole medical profession. I believed I knew more than they. This experience proved I’m wrong and I have no shame in admitting it. There are times when they are absolutely wonderful and what they do saves lives. Everyone we met (except one sour faced nurse) was great. I’ve found new respect for the medical world and less certainty that I know better.

3 The Journey

Over the years I’ve been developing a much greater appreciation of the importance of the journey over the destination. This was a reminder that there may well be times when the result is more important than how one gets there. We now have a healthy, beautiful daughter and a fast recovering mother. The path was not the path we wanted .. but it did get us here safely. The other paths might have ended in disaster.

Impossible Not To Love

You can’t always get what you want

… or the way you want it or when you want it.

At the time it was hard to accept this.

We wanted a natural birth, soft lights, gentle music and a lot of warmth and gentleness. As I was sitting by Mona’s side as she lay on the operating table I had this thought,

‘Am I ever going to be able to love the baby?’

We wanted Sara’s first hours to be laying on the safety of her mothers chest. We wanted the cord to be left and not cut straight away. As they opened Mona under the bright lights, as they pulled Sara out, cut the cord and took her away to clean and check, I wondered,

‘Will this damage her in some way? Will I be able to look her in the eye, knowing that I wasn’t able to protect her at this most vulnerable point of her new life?‘

Three weeks after the birth, as I hold her in my arms or watch her face as she’s sleeping peacefully those thoughts are long dead. She’s safe, warm, happy and cared for.

It is impossible for me not to love her.

5 Questions While Waiting For A Baby

Feb 6th, 2010

by ianpeatey.

12 comments

I’m waiting for a baby to be born. To be exact, my third daughter is due to be born around 8th February.

I know many people find it hard to get excited about other peoples’ children, no matter how cute and angelic. If you’re one of those people then you probably haven’t even got this far into the article which is a shame because it’s not really about babies and kids and stuff.

On one hand it seems like I’m in a baby limbo where everything is ready and we’re just filling time waiting. We’re ready, the apartment is ready, family is ready, birth support is ready. Even the dogs are ready.

Just no baby yet!

On the other hand, and apologies for the well worn cliché, everything happens for a reason – even if we don’t know what it is.

One thing it has allowed me is a little space to reflect.

1. Nature Is Perfectly Designed Just As It Is

If a group of people had sat down and said, ‘Hey! Let’s create a way to make babies,‘ I doubt they could have come up with anything even close to the perfect way nature designed it.

The female body is beautifully constructed to grow, give birth to and then nurture a child. Everything is taken care of – even the feeding arrangements.

Isn’t this perfect design true of everything in nature?

We have great power to change the face of the earth and do so in the interests of making things better. We dig huge holes in mountains, mold the landscape, reclaim land, change the course of rivers, cut down forests and add to the gases in the air.

Does anything we do to the planet improve on nature?

2. Life Is Full Of Hazard

Child birth is a major physical, emotional and spiritual experience in which new life is brought into the world. Pregnancy is not an illness and birth is a perfectly natural event.

It happens all the time.

Yet every visit to the doctor, every time we open a book on the subject, we’re bombarded with lists of all the things that could go wrong. Most people we talk to are amazed Mona wants a natural birth without any chemical pain relief.

Faced with all these birth horror stories and the fear of pain, it’s no wonder so many women elect for a planned C-section – the standard way to give birth in Romania. Can anyone really tell me that in a perfectly healthy woman who has had a problem free pregnancy that it’s better to cut open her belly and pull the baby out?

Of course things can go wrong – but that doesn’t mean I should expect them to!

Bad things can happen walking down the street but I’d never go out if I took precautions for every single thing that could befall me. It’s good to be on the look out for danger and have an idea what to do – but not to assume that the sky is going to fall on my head when I step out the door.

Have we become so fear driven we’ve numbed ourselves to the experience of living?

3. We Could Move Things On

Mona, especially, is getting very impatient as she gets more and more uncomfortable and wanting her body back. As time goes on, the impatience and discomfort starts to outweigh any fear she might have of giving birth (though it’s my third, it’s her first). Inside, our baby is snug and warm and as she gets bigger the ‘snug’ gets to a point where she’s squeezed as she runs out of room.

Allowing nature to run its course brings both mother and child to a point – a ‘tipping point’ – where it’s time for the birth.

It’s tempting to allow the impatience to rule and forget that everything happens at exactly the right time. We could take control and move things on. We could use chemicals. We could use surgery.

Many people do.

But do we really understand the consequences when we interfere with that perfect design of nature? Do we really know the long term effects on our baby? On the mother? And without wanting to sound overly dramatic … on the entire future of the human race?

In our desire for control, do we create long term problems by interfering?

4. Everyone wants to be involved

Everyone has an opinion on everything – from what Mona should be eating and doing, how we should give birth and even what name we should give our daughter. I suspect this is just the start and all these well meaning people will have plenty of advice for us for the next 20 years or so. I’m not talking about family and close friends – people close enough to us to know when their support is welcome and when not. I mean people who hardly know us or, in some cases, complete strangers.

It’s got to the point where we no longer answer the phone!

I take it as a sign of care and consideration but I’d love it if they could find different ways to express that.

I guess it’s no surprise when the papers are full of ‘news’ about the private lives of the rich and famous and our TV’s are a constant source of ‘reality’ shows (though not like any reality I’ve ever experienced).

Have we lost our capacity to judge when we’re welcome or not?

5. The State Doesn’t Trust Us

We are responsible people.

Both Mona and I are well and widely educated, we don’t take parenting lightly and are quite capable to make our decisions.

We’ve researched, spoken to many people and, though this is Mona’s first, it is my third birth. Everything has gone smoothly during pregnancy. We’ve checked with doctors and midwives and there are absolutely no signs of anything other than a perfectly normal birth.

We both believe, for many reasons, that a natural home birth is the best way to bring our daughter into the world. Recognising that things are unpredictible we’d like this to be supported by a trained midwife and a hospital ready to provide back-up if needed.

The state thinks we are stupid and irresponsible. Not just us .. but everyone.

They believe that hospital birth is best and have effectively made home birth illegal. If we do what we believe is best for Mona and for our baby then we risk not getting treated if things go wrong, prosecution and (I’m guessing here) being blacklisted by the social services.

People who don’t know us are making decisions about our lives.

In what areas do we allow others to make fundamental decisions about our lives?

The Miracle Of Birth

Oct 5th, 2009

by ianpeatey.

13 comments

My third daughter is due to enter the world early next year and I’m determined to make sure she’s properly welcomed.

As a man I will never experience birth other than as an outside observer. My role in the pregnancy itself was pretty much accomplished back in the Spring. I don’t mean to underplay the emotional or physical support I provide – but frankly speaking, what I do is rather limited compared to the miracle going on inside Mona’s body.

I’m a little hesitant to write about the subject of childbirth – mainly because I’m not, never have been and have no intention of being a woman. There’s already far too much male influence on the predominantly female subject of childbirth and I don’t want to add to it.

But I will.

Pregnancy is not an illness

Our daughter will arrive into the world in a hospital, which is not exactly the place I’d wish for our first contact but the government decided some time ago that they know what’s best. We could choose to ignore the law, but that adds a stress we’d rather do without.

For better or for worse, birth has been taken over by the medical profession – which includes both medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies.

The better side is that, in the unlikely event that something goes wrong the chances for both mother and baby are improved. They can do amazing things, medically and scientifically speaking. They can test for this or that, reduce pain, remove babies through C-sections and they even have a machine that can photograph our little one at 5 months in the womb. Having these things available is not a ‘bad’ thing, though I do wonder how many procedures are performed just because we can do it, rather than because they are actually necessary.

The female body is designed (among other things) to grow babies and give birth to them. We (mainly men, I suspect!) have decided we know better and believe that with instruments and chemicals we can improve on nature. Somehow I doubt this is true!

Pregnancy is NOT a medical condition and birth is NOT a health threat – except in rare situations. Only when we treat them this way do they become so and we introduce fear and we grab at safety.

I don’t want my baby to be treated as an illness or as the outcome of a medical procedure.

I want her to be welcomed as a beautiful, delicate and unique new person entering the world.

The miracle of birth

The person growing inside Mona is the creation of new life. She, like every other baby, is a miracle. Mona and I are preparing for birth to make sure, as far as possible, we provide the kind of welcome for her that respects and honours this miracle.

1 The place

We can’t avoid hospital (without a lot of unneeded stress) but we can choose which hospital. We’ve decided that, even though we have little money, this is an important use of it. The public provision of maternity care is very far from what we want and they have strict rules and procedures to follow. In the public domain the expectation is, mainly for the convenience of the doctors, that we’ll schedule a C-section, as do the majority of mothers.

We’re using money to buy our freedom to choose where we give birth. And we’ve found a hospital that fully supports our right to choose and is very co-operative in providing a range of options for natural birth.

It’s the best we can do – but it’s still a hospital.

2 The people

We can choose who is present to welcome our daughter – up to a point.

We’re obliged (again the government knows best!) to have a doctor in attendance. Fortunately we’ve found one who is very supportive of our right to choose. He works with a midwife who’s passionate about and very experienced with natural birth, and assuming all goes smoothly, will allow her to support the birth itself. We count ourselves very lucky to have found them.

We’re undecided whether or not I will be present.

I grew up in the UK where it’s now the norm for fathers to be present. In many parts of the world (including here in Romania) it’s uncommon. There are good reasons for both and although I was present for the birth of my other two daughters, I’m considering this as an open question for now. I plan to write another post specifically on this.

The only person who absolutely has to be there is Mona!

3 The welcome

Neither of us subscribe to the view that new born babies are not conscious. We believe, while she may not be able to make sense of the world, she does experience it, and that those first experiences are crucial to her development as a human being. We want the environment in which we give birth to be welcoming and sensitive to her needs over and above the needs of the doctors.

The conventional ‘wisdom’ that babies are not conscious and don’t feel pain has, fortunately, lost a lot of credibility over recent years.

Under this ‘wisdom’ it was conceded that even if they do feel pain, it’s no problem because they won’t remember. Under this ‘wisdom’ surgical procedures were (still are?) performed without anaesthetic. Under this ‘wisdom’ the cries of a new born were considered healthy because it meant they can breathe. Under this ‘wisdom’ sticking in needles and shining a bright light into the eyes of the newborn was ok. Under this ‘wisdom’ virtually no consideration was given to trauma the baby might be experiencing during and immediately after birth.

It wasn’t until the publication in 1974 of Frederick Leboyer’s, ‘Birth without Violence’* that we started to seriously question this conventional ‘wisdom’.

After 35 years it’s still not reached all parts of the medical world.

For the 9 months leading up to birth she’s been in a warm, gravity free place. It’s dark and sounds are muffled and softened. Her mother’s heartbeat and the nutrients flowing through the cord have been a constant connection with her host. She’s been held firmly and safely inside her mother and allowed to grow without even the need to breathe.

At 9 months she’s gradually squeezed out into the world through a narrow opening and greeted by …?

I want her to be greeted by respectful silence, soft light, calmness and warmth. I want her to be placed against Mona’s skin, close to her heartbeat. To be given time to adjust to breathing before the cord is cut. I want her to be subject to the absolute minimum of checks and tests and her body to be kept free of chemicals. I want her delicate skin to be touched only gently.

I want her to get a glimpse, however small it might be, that this world is a wonderful place for her to be.

I want her to know, from that very first moment she arrives, that she’s loved and welcome in this world.

* Even if you have no interest in birth, I highly recommend ‘Birth without Violence’. It is beautiful, sad and wise.