When I was little, I never questioned that I would go for a
natural childbirth. My mom had done it with all of her children (except maybe
the twins? I can’t remember if she had an epidural or not), and had gone
through epidurals/C-sections with some stillbirths, and my memory is that she
always spoke most negatively about those times. She didn’t like not feeling in
control of her body; she didn’t like having a long, painful, slow recovery; and
in all these cases, it seemed as if all decisions had been made by the doctors
and she had had no say in the matter. She never held back in describing how
painful her natural childbirths were, but she also talked very positively about
how smooth and wonderful the recoveries were, in contrast to the times when she
had a C-section or an epidural.
So it was natural for me, all the way, with my hypothetical
six children, until I actually got married and began seriously reevaluating the
size of the cervix and the size of a baby’s head. Then, for a while, I did a
180. Drugs. Definitely drugs. All the way. I would take an epidural, feel
nothing, and sleep until it was time to push (for an hour or two) the baby out.
Isn’t science the greatest?
This positive, cheery mindset lasted roughly up until the
moment when we actually decided to start trying to get pregnant. By this point,
a lot of my friends had gone through a lot of childbirth. Some had epidurals;
some went all natural. Some went somewhere in between. No one’s story was the
same. Every woman had a unique experience, and what surprised me the most was
how every story had hallmarks of pain, fear, and uncertainty. There were still
the seemingly perfect “I had an epidural and it was wonderful!” stories and the
“I went all natural and it was the best experience of my life!” stories, but
the ones that really made an impression on me were the hard-hitting, no punches
pulled, “I had a BABY and it was crazy and insane and HARD HARD HARD and I didn’t
know what I was doing but everything worked out and we’re both okay” stories.
And these came from both epidural mamas and natural childbirthing mamas.
So now I was in a pickle. It seemed as though complications could
still exist with epidurals. It even seemed like epidurals were more likely to
create scenarios where perfectly healthy women with perfectly healthy babies
ended up getting C-sections, as if it were a simple procedure and not major
surgery that is difficult to recover from.
I was gradually starting to come back to the natural birth
method. Why? First, epidurals and hospital births in general are expensive—much
more so than giving birth at a birth center or doing a home birth. Second, the
best childbirth stories I heard—the ones that came closest to my best-case
scenario vision of low pain, swift recovery, and positive experience—were,
without exception, natural childbirths. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), they
often came from women who were quick to confess that they were not super tough
and had a healthy fear of/respect for pain, and would not tough out
circumstances that warranted medical intervention. Third, everything about the
hospital scenario repelled me. My mom has spoken often about her disgust with
having to be monitored constantly and ordered around by the nurses and doctors
into certain positions that worsened the pain. Looking back, it seems she got
to enjoy the worst of both worlds—an unfriendly, restrictive hospital
environment that prevented her from moving, relaxing, and taking charge of her
body during a critical time, without drugs or pain relief or even the necessity
of having to be there because the baby was in critical condition (we were all
fine at birth). Having relatives for doctors has taught me they are just regular
people who make mistakes, like everyone else, and that I usually know my own
body’s needs better than anyone else. The best doctors will try not to stand in
the way of your body fixing itself, but will defer to the wisdom and natural
processes of the body. This has always just made sense to me. I wanted to feel
safe, empowered, and in control as much as possible of what was happening to me
during childbirth. I wanted to be able to try natural pain relief methods for
as long as possible and to move, eat, moan, and be in communication with my
body’s needs directly rather than rely blindly on the suggestion of nurses and
doctors. I also wanted to be mostly left alone, with people I loved and trusted
and who wouldn’t make me feel pressured to cater to their needs or their
schedule. And the more I read and researched natural childbirthing methods and
stories, the more I resonated with women who felt the exact same way. In fact,
natural childbirth seemed not only the most natural way, but the optimal way to
give birth in any circumstance. I went from fearing it to thinking duh, of
course, why isn’t this what every pregnant woman hopes and wishes for? Fourth,
I’ll just add that having a water birth has always sounded wonderful to me. My
whole life I have been drawn to water. It rejuvenates, comforts, and heals me
in a way I don’t fully comprehend. It’s always been a form of physical, mental,
and spiritual therapy for me.
Now, all that being said, I am not anti-epidural or
anti-C-section or anti-doctors. Of course there are circumstances in which
hospital births are beneficial and necessary for the health of the baby and the
mother. If circumstances arise in my pregnancy that necessitate our having to
give birth in a hospital or via C-section, I will be disappointed but I will be
grateful for that option. I don’t judge any woman for her choice in how to have
a baby—that decision is between a woman and her body. I don’t believe in one
right way to give birth for every mother. I can only say what I believe right
now for me.
