I was extremely honored to be asked to provide a guest post on Rixa’s wonderful “True Face of Birth” blog recently. The post was a response to a comment-storm, generated by some people who were not prepared to see some pretty typical homebirther stuff online (although what they thought they’d see on a blog subtitled “Raw, Powerful, Ecstatic” is beyond me…)
Anyway, here’s my contribution to the fray, “Judgment, Fear, and Focus“.
A while back, before I had her permission to post, I wrote “Triumph” about Shaye’s birth. On Brighton’s one-month birthday, she’s now published the full birth story. It doesn’t show up well in firefox, so use IE. And prepare to be amazed. A few of my personal fave bits:
Way to go, Shaye. I am so so so proud of you, and of what you’ve accomplished. What a beacon of hope, what a trailblazer, to all the other women who are stuck where you were, and not sure how to get out. Because you did it, they’ll be able to see a path as well.
My friend S gave birth today. Her little boy came into this world surrounded by family, touched first by people who love him, quietly, smoothly, beautifully. The details of the story are hers to tell, and hopefully I’ll be honored enough to link to them sometime soon.
Four months ago, S believed she could not have this kind of birth. She’d had two cesareans. She lived in a state where midwifery is illegal. Her best option was to resign herself to planning the best cesarean possible.
But S is strong. And she asked questions. A lot of questions. And in three short months, pulled together a birth plan that involved things like respect, and privacy, and having her two other children present. It also involved driving across entire states, and finding midwives who viewed two prior cesareans as a failure of the system, not a failure of S’s body. And it involved S and her husband having the faith, and the strength, and the endurance, and the foresight, to question an entire paradigm that was pushing on them harder than it pushes on most people, throwing up barriers that stop most people from getting the birth they want.
So when I tell you that her birth was completely without incident, that it all went off without a hitch, and that today, S is not a recovering surgical patient, she’s a woman who claimed her power and changed everything by sheer determination, those of you who daily see what the birth machine does to women in this country will understand why I got off the phone with her, and cheered and danced around and cried a little and did it all again some more. Such a small thing, such a simple birth, such a miracle that it ever got the chance to happen like it did.
So here’s to S, her husband, and their family. Yours is the story that tells me there’s hope of being able to topple the birth machine. You had your normal, quiet birth against insane odds, despite stupid laws, around ridiculous constraints. But you did it. And nothing will ever stop you ever again.
UPDATE: Shaye’s birth story is now live, here.
The amazing and brilliant Jen on VBACfacts.com posts this winner:
A Letter From A Hospital Explaining Why They Banned VBAC
And I thought I was speechless about the UHC elective cesarean thing I posted about last. This just kicks it. I may calm down enough to respond to this in a measured and analytical way sometime before I have this baby, but I doubt it.
Friends, it was never more clearly stated why birth does not belong anywhere near a hospital. And from the horses’ mouth.
My pal Kimberly over at Trial of Labor just tagged me with a bunch of homebirth questions. So hey, whatever gets me back at the page and blogging, right? Thanks Kimberly!
Here are her questions:
The story of Kestrel’s birth covers most of that.
It’s so so so strange to me that this discussion even needs to happen. Just three generations ago, homebirth was the norm, and now it’s this freakish thing. The first American president not born at home was Jimmy Carter. Hospital birth is a recent phenomenon, and I really want to know how The Machine managed to destroy thousands of years of wisdom in a few short generations. Chilling, isn’t it? I wrote a post, which was actuall a letter to the Midwifery Board of California, here. That also addresses a lot of how I feel about questions one, two, and three.
Oh, the doubters say, but women died back then. Hello, read the news? Women are dying now. America’s birth statistics are apalling.
As far as partners being on board; I had some pretty gnarly PPD after the cesarean, and Jason was far more terrified that he’d be stuck with that woman for the rest of his life than he was worried about a homebirth outcome. Wise man that he is, he saw the homebirth of our second baby as his last, best hope of reclaiming his pre-cesarean wife. Turns out, he was totally right, and is now a pretty staunch advocate for the rights of birthing women, and the rightness of birthing at home.
I also wrote a post over at Life Without School, about the impacts of homebirth on older siblings, and knowing what I know now, I find the whole idea of removing your older children from the birth environment pretty abhorrent. No wonder siblings have issues, when they’re removed from the primary bonding loop. Families are birthed, not just babies, and the older kids are part of that family.
I could babble on, but I’ll stop there. Birth belongs at home.
I‘ve been studing extreme sports pretty much since I got told that I was participating in one (freediving), and decided that our culture’s view of “extreme” is ridiculous.
I can tell you that, judging by what gets written about the things people do to themselves in the name of sport, the human body is astonishing in what it can go through, and heal from. Astonishing. There was one motorcyclist, his name escapes me, but in one wipeout, they had to staple his face back onto his head. Very frankensteinian. I read an interview with his mother, who basically said that she’d relaxed years ago, and just kept up good medical insurance.
In the name of sport, people shred themselves in all kinds of fascinating ways.
And yet never, not ever, will you hear someone be told not to get back in the ocean, not to get back on the bike, not to climb the mountain, just because a few years back something went all weird and pear-shaped on them. They broke, they heal, they keep coming.
And yet if you’ve had a cesarean, they’ll tell you you can’t birth any other way, that trying is too risky, that you must at all times be safe safe safe, and of course being safe happens to be doing what they tell you to do, which is to get another cesarean. Why? Because there’s a chance the scar on your uterus will rupture. You know, because it’s a scar.
I really do think that our culture wants to control birthing women, and iconicise athletes, without recognizing that the human body is a constant form. Being a birther doesn’t change how you heal, being a biker doesn’t change how you heal. So unless a single injury starts banning men from the sports they participate in, I think it’s absolute crap that an injury (and a surgical injury at that! Darn sight easier to heal from than having your face ripped off your skull!) should ban a woman from the birth she wants.
Oh sure, increased stats for risk of blah blah blah Charlie Brown’s Teacher blah blah blah. When extreme athletes pick themselves back up and keep going, we idolize them. No one would dare chide a downhill skier for getting back on the skis, but somehow, we’ve let them do it to us.