giving birth
Anonymous Mom: I Had One Baby At Home. And I’m TERRIFIED To Do It Again
If I were to have my next baby in the hospital I fear that I would have to fight against the establishment every step of the way in order to achieve the things that are important to me. I don’t want to be hooked up to an IV, wear a gown and wristband, sit under florescent lights, and labor on my back in bed. I don’t want to be forbidden to eat or do anything that might interrupt the constant flow of data from the EFM.
I don’t want to be cared for by whomever happens to be on call that I’ve never met before. I don’t want to be wide open to hospital germs and multiple sets of hands as shifts change. I don’t want to be put on a timeline or hear about one more person who “fails to progress.†I don’t want the Pitocin that causes unnaturally strong contractions that causes you to need the epidural that causes the next domino to fall. I don’t want the epidural that doesn’t take, or doesn’t last, or only works on one side, or leaves the “patient†with a headache for days or weeks, with back pain for months or years. I don’t want someone to have to tell me when to push because I have no sensation at all.
I certainly don’t want an episiotomy or a forceps or vacuum delivery, or a C-section and the mess that that entails. I don’t want the baby to be separated from me for a single second. Ever. I don’t want the cord cut immediately, my placenta discarded. I don’t want gel in my baby’s eyes (just in case I have gonorrhea), I don’t want Vitamin K shot into her (just in caseshe gets a bleeding cut before she’s 8 days old), I don’t want her vaccinated against Hep B on her first day of life (just in case I irresponsibly don’t get her vaccinated before she has sex or starts shooting heroin). I don’t want any of these things or anything at all to interfere with our immediate bonding time or breastfeeding.
I’ll tell you what else I don’t want though— the pain.
