Just when I start to get discouraged about birth, I get to hear a wave of wonderful birth stories. In the past month, I've heard three great ones. Two friends had beautiful, natural births, one had a VBAC, and another friend had a vaginal delivery that she was very excited about. This last friend had the great courtesy to deliver her baby while I was in my home town visiting family, so I got to meet the wee bairn!
Has anyone else heard anything exciting about birth lately?
Showing posts with label vbac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vbac. Show all posts
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth
An ICAN friend leant me a copy of Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin. I am about halfway through reading it and find it a very emotional process.
The first half of the book consists of beautiful birth stories. There are 130 pages of women describing their natural births. I finish each story in tears, either because the story was so beautiful or because I learned something about my own body or birth that makes me feel...well, just really eager to try again.
Of particular interest to me were the VBAC stories in the collection. I felt like the mothers in this book did a fantastic job of verbalizing my own thoughts and feelings about birth and I really felt like I rejoiced with them when they placed their own newborn babies on their stomachs or started nursing right away.
I am just a few pages into the second section of the book, where Ina May discusses the birth process and what I assume will be her guidance through a beautiful labor. She has a lot to say about fear and its affect on the cervix. I find myself wondering (well, who am I kidding! Fixating!) whether my anxieties about motherhood and my fear of medical interventions lead to the chain of events resulting in my c-section.
I feel like if Ina May had been in that LDR room, she would have told me first to blow raspberries and make out with Corey during contracts, then to verbally tell my body to open, and then she would have made me feel like 18 hours is still a "normal" time for a cervix to open up. Yes. Even 18 hours.
One thing I feel certain of is that this book is a fantastic read for any birth junkie and probably should be essential reading for pregnant women. I'm so glad Emily let me borrow it!
The first half of the book consists of beautiful birth stories. There are 130 pages of women describing their natural births. I finish each story in tears, either because the story was so beautiful or because I learned something about my own body or birth that makes me feel...well, just really eager to try again.
Of particular interest to me were the VBAC stories in the collection. I felt like the mothers in this book did a fantastic job of verbalizing my own thoughts and feelings about birth and I really felt like I rejoiced with them when they placed their own newborn babies on their stomachs or started nursing right away.
I am just a few pages into the second section of the book, where Ina May discusses the birth process and what I assume will be her guidance through a beautiful labor. She has a lot to say about fear and its affect on the cervix. I find myself wondering (well, who am I kidding! Fixating!) whether my anxieties about motherhood and my fear of medical interventions lead to the chain of events resulting in my c-section.
I feel like if Ina May had been in that LDR room, she would have told me first to blow raspberries and make out with Corey during contracts, then to verbally tell my body to open, and then she would have made me feel like 18 hours is still a "normal" time for a cervix to open up. Yes. Even 18 hours.
One thing I feel certain of is that this book is a fantastic read for any birth junkie and probably should be essential reading for pregnant women. I'm so glad Emily let me borrow it!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Poughkeepsie VBACs on the Rise
Women delivering near Vassar got some optimistic news this month. According to an article in the Poughkeepsie Journal, the area's primary c-section rate has dropped as its VBAC rate has increased. The area showed a 22% increase in VBACs for 2009!
The trick seems to be for the directors of obstetrics to lay on the pressure. The article indicates that the hospitals showing this data used midwives in the hospital to assist deliveries, promoted VBAC, and were "very careful about inductions."
Seems like good Standard Operating Procedure to be emulated!
The trick seems to be for the directors of obstetrics to lay on the pressure. The article indicates that the hospitals showing this data used midwives in the hospital to assist deliveries, promoted VBAC, and were "very careful about inductions."
Seems like good Standard Operating Procedure to be emulated!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Finding ICAN
I had it all planned out. I was going to have an amazing, empowering natural childbirth. I had a cd of birth mantras. My husband was a trained and awesome labor support partner. My mom kept a bag packed in her car, ready to zoom out here and talk me through a fast and easy labor, just like she had. I read books. I took classes. I skipped all the "crap" about c-sections because I wasn't having one of those and didn't want to let the idea take up space in my energy field.
So, 18 hours into my wonderful, natural labor, my posterior baby was in trouble. He passed meconium (lots and lots of it--enough so that the midwife grabbed the OB on duty at Magee). His heart rate dropped and stayed at 40 (my midwife told me infant heart rates average 120...they typically do emergency c-sections at 90). Twenty-seven minutes later, my baby had been surgically removed from me, I was drugged with all kinds of crap, and I was about to enter into a depressed, traumatized, and fragile mental state.
So much for empowered birth warrior. I spent weeks sobbing for hours, wigged out on Vicodin, reeling from confusion, and struggling to mother a baby whose diaper I couldn't change since I couldn't sit up or walk on my own.
I didn't know that it was ok to feel the things I was feeling, or even have real words to describe my perspective. I didn't know other women experienced this, too, and I didn't know where to turn.
And then a google search led me to ICAN-online, where there was an article about the emotional impact of a cesarean. I cried again when I read this, but not in a bad way. I felt relief wash over me. I felt my bones settle and my tense shoulders relax. The women in the article articulated exactly what I was feeling. Their words gave voice to my pain. It felt like a miracle to read.
I kept reading. I learned about a thing called a VBAC. I learned there was an international community of women who will support me through the coping, mourning, grieving process. I found ICAN.
Now, in addition to the online community, I have access to a local ICAN chapter: ICAN of Southwestern PA. We've had 3 meetings so far, where mothers gather to share their birth stories, share their VBAC stories!, and support one another. As I gear up for mother's day this weekend, I want to thank ICAN for giving me the gift I needed most as a new mother: hope.
So, 18 hours into my wonderful, natural labor, my posterior baby was in trouble. He passed meconium (lots and lots of it--enough so that the midwife grabbed the OB on duty at Magee). His heart rate dropped and stayed at 40 (my midwife told me infant heart rates average 120...they typically do emergency c-sections at 90). Twenty-seven minutes later, my baby had been surgically removed from me, I was drugged with all kinds of crap, and I was about to enter into a depressed, traumatized, and fragile mental state.
So much for empowered birth warrior. I spent weeks sobbing for hours, wigged out on Vicodin, reeling from confusion, and struggling to mother a baby whose diaper I couldn't change since I couldn't sit up or walk on my own.
I didn't know that it was ok to feel the things I was feeling, or even have real words to describe my perspective. I didn't know other women experienced this, too, and I didn't know where to turn.
And then a google search led me to ICAN-online, where there was an article about the emotional impact of a cesarean. I cried again when I read this, but not in a bad way. I felt relief wash over me. I felt my bones settle and my tense shoulders relax. The women in the article articulated exactly what I was feeling. Their words gave voice to my pain. It felt like a miracle to read.
I kept reading. I learned about a thing called a VBAC. I learned there was an international community of women who will support me through the coping, mourning, grieving process. I found ICAN.
Now, in addition to the online community, I have access to a local ICAN chapter: ICAN of Southwestern PA. We've had 3 meetings so far, where mothers gather to share their birth stories, share their VBAC stories!, and support one another. As I gear up for mother's day this weekend, I want to thank ICAN for giving me the gift I needed most as a new mother: hope.
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