9 posts tagged “homebirth”

Fox in Socks

Dr. Seuss

For a while after Luke was born I had the Dr. Seuss tongue twister about Luke Luck found in the book "Fox in Socks" stuck in my head. 

Luke Luck likes lakes.
Luke's duck likes lakes.
Luke Luck licks lakes.
Luck's duck licks lakes.

Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes.
Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.

Well now it's even more ironic that that poem was stuck in my head. My husband went and looked back at the receipt we got after filing for the birth certificate. Instead of writing my son's name as "Luke" (as I had written it out on the form), they typed it up as "Luck." And in my postpartum sleep deprived state I did not catch it and signed off on it.

Luke Luck Receipt

We're now in the process of trying to correct the spelling of his name before the birth certificate is actually issued, but I can just see the people at the state vital records office saying "look, some hippie home birth mom named her kid born on St. Patrick's day 'Luck'." At very least it looks like "Luck" is going to be a permanent nickname for Luke.

Abstract from the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health: http://www.jmwh.com/article/S1526-9523(08)00338-3/abstract

jmwh.com

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Approximately 1% of American women give birth at home and face substantial obstacles when they make this choice. This study describes the reasons that women in the United States choose home birth. A qualitative descriptive secondary analysis was conducted in a previously collected dataset obtained via an online survey. The sample consisted of 160 women who were US residents and planned a home birth at least once. Content analysis was used to study the responses from women to one essay question: “Why did you choose home birth?” Women who participated in the study were mostly married (91%) and white (87%). The majority (62%) had a college education. Our analysis revealed 508 separate statements about why these women chose home birth. Responses were coded and categorized into 26 common themes. The most common reasons given for wanting to birth at home were: 1) safety (n = 38); 2) avoidance of unnecessary medical interventions common in hospital births (n = 38); 3) previous negative hospital experience (n = 37); 4) more control (n = 35); and 5) comfortable, familiar environment (n = 30). Another dominant theme was women's trust in the birth process (n = 25). Women equated medical intervention with reduced safety and trusted their bodies' inherent ability to give birth without interference.

I'm in the home stretch! We're still planning the home birth. I'm so very excited about it and relaxed about it all at the same time. My experience planning my first home birth has overall gone really well (with the exception of hassling with my insurance company). I hope my experience is a sign of the direction to a more open acceptance of home birth in the US and especially Georgia, and not just some fluke of "luck" on my part.   

The home birth has been somewhat of an "open secret" for me. It's not that I'm really hiding it from anyone, but at the same time I'm not volunteering that information to everyone I meet. Every time it gets mentioned I get grilled about why. I guess I can understand that. I also understand that the "why" comes from a lot of different places. Sometimes it's a "why" in horror and sometimes it's simply a "why" of curiosity. Sometimes it's a combination of the two.

The strange thing is even when I try to tell people why I keep feeling like they think I'm really choosing a home birth because I'm looking for some ultimate fantasy, mountain top experience. That it's all about the beautiful, flowering birth experience and nothing about the realities of what birth truly is. Or that it's some female machoism that I have to prove something to myself. Well let me clarify, for me, it's neither of those.

So, why am I choosing a home birth?

• I want to have a healthy child.
• Another medicated birth is a bad idea for me. It just doesn't work. I have to do natural childbirth this time around (and I should have done it the other three times), and after more research I've really come to embrace and look forward to this choice.
• Doing natural childbirth in the hospital scares me. I know what a hospital birth is like, and I feel panicked every time I even think of the possibility of trying to do an unmedicated birth in any of the hospitals around where I live.
• I'm scared of having a c-section and I want to hedge my bets against that happening. Honestly, I don't know why I've been the recipient of this grace, but I feel like it is only by the grace of God that I have gone through three medicated, hospital births and have not had a c-section.
• I don't want to go through the birth process constantly feeling like I'm in an adversarial position with my caregivers.
• I want to be treated respectfully.
• I don't want to feel broken after the birth.
• I want to be able to care for my kids after the birth instead of having to work through emotional baggage resulting from how I was treated during the birth.
• I don't want to have wires strapped all over me during the birth.
• I don't want to have to ASK to move around during the birth.
• I don't want to have to make a "SPECIAL REQUEST" to give birth in a way that makes sense to my body in that moment, which I have a strong feeling is not going to be lying on a bed with my feet high above my head.
• Truthfully, I just want to have a NORMAL BIRTH.

Again, these are my reasons. I'm not trying to make a statement or judgment about anyone else's choices. One really has to look closely at their own body, own circumstances and own comfort level along with taking into account research and evidence based care to figure out what is the right choice for their family. 

Change.org is hosting a campaign "Ideas for Change in America" in which the "Top 10 Ideas for America" will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day. From the site:

The "Top 10 Ideas for America" will be determined through two rounds of voting.

In the first round, ideas will compete against other ideas in the same issue category. The first round will end on December 31, 2008, and the top 3 rated ideas from each category will make it into the second round.

The second round of voting will begin on Monday, January 5, and each qualifying idea will compete against the qualifying ideas from all other categories. Second round voting will end on Thursday, January 15.

Today was my first real appointment with a home birth midwife. I had previously seen her at a consultation and that was a fairly long appointment, but I kind of expected that. I mean, home birth is way out of the cultural norm for lots of people in America, not to mention Georgia, so I kind of figured they would devote lots of time to questions and the like during the initial consultation. What I wasn't entirely prepared for is how long the regular appointments are. I had read that the appointments for a home birth midwife are much longer than your typical Ob/Gyn prenatal appointments, but I still don't think I had my head wrapped around what a great contrast there is between the two types of appointments.

My appointment was at 11 a.m. and I wasn't finished until 1 p.m. The conversation was warm and casual, but filled with boat-loads of information. I never felt rushed or like I'm taking up too much of their time. I had a list of things I wanted to ask and discuss, which were similar in length to lists I had brought to my Ob/Gyn appointments, and we covered each item. The midwife also had some things she wanted to go over with me, which we discussed. It was all very conversational. I was given lots of information but I never felt like I was being lectured, or like I didn't know how to make my own informed choice.  

The midwife and her assistant also did all the normal stuff you would expect at an average prenatal appointment. I got to pee in a cup, I had my blood pressure taken, I was weighed, and she listened to the baby's heartbeat. All normal. Yes, nowhere else is it more wonderful to hear how normal you are than from your healthcare provider.

I also never felt like I was wasting my time. I know one of my first thoughts at reading about a two hour appointment would be "what in the world are they taking up all that time with?!" But it wasn't like that at all. The time flew by. When I finally got back in my car (which was the first time I checked the time since the appointment started) I was shocked at how much time had passed. On my way back from the appointment I really noticed how rejuvenated and built-up I felt after the appointment. It was really nice, and I'm so looking forward to my next appointment.  

I've had this thing on my mind that I've really wanted to write about, but wasn't sure I was really ready to put up a post about it on my blog. Like most of you, I have internet land readers and IRL readers. And, yeah, well you know how that goes.

Anyway, the thing I've wanted to talk about, which been consuming a lot of my thoughts, but none of my writing, is that I'm planning a home birth this time around. I am super excited about it. My husband is not as excited as I am, but is cautiously trusting my decision. I've met some awesome people  on my journey to learn more about home birth, and I feel more well-read and well-researched regarding all things surrounding birth/postpartum than I ever did before any of my other births.

If you're curious about my birth history and what brought me to the home birth decision, but don't want to dig through my archives to piece it together, here goes:

I've had three hospital births. All three were what I consider very classic hospital births. With all three I had epidurals, some other kind of narcotics (couldn't tell you what exactly), IV's, continuous monitoring, laboring while lying down in bed... all the usual stuff for a hospital birth. I had pitocin with my first, but not with my second two. I've torn with all three, but haven't had an episiotomy. Also, all three were vaginal deliveries, full term and over eight pounds.

To be honest, I probably would have been fine with this American cultural standard for birth if it had not had been for the fact that epidurals and pain medicine in general work very poorly, if at all, on me. The narcotics I've been given for labor pain relief generally give me light relief for about 15-20 minutes (just long enough to call the anesthesiologist and wait for him/her to arrive). I've had varying luck with epidurals. With my first it only worked on one side and that was the labor that I also had pitocin with. Fun stuff let me tell you. I was a very poor advocate for myself at the time. The second time I got an epidural with my next child it worked at a tolerable level, although I had to beg him to turn it up. That's another fun feeling: pleading with someone to help you while you are in labor. Fun stuff. But again, I still felt lots of pain, it was just best described as muffled. With my third and most recent birth the epidural did not work at all. However I was more prepared for that possibility. As calmly and clearly as I could muster I told as many staff as I met that it was not working, yet no one took me seriously. I decided that relying on the hospital staff to help me (through pain management or whatever) was a waste and I had to handle this myself. Against staff advice I sat up from lying flat (which was the position I was advised to be in to "help" the epidural work) and began to manage the pain myself. It was extremely frustrating to be dismissed in labor, but with this labor I finally figured out that I really don't need pain medicine to get through the labor. I realized I can manage the pain myself and I manage it better than the pain medicine.

Finally, I realized that my whole attempt to use pain medicine to manage my labor was really a waste of my time. It is no longer a realistic option for me (it never really was). I have to do this myself. But managing pain myself in a hospital environment was (and is) a pretty scary idea to me. I mean, I know people who've done it, and I think that's awesome, but I just can't imagine how I would do it.

With each birth I've tried to labor at home a little longer. I know how I manage the pain at home, and it's not by lying in bed with a bunch of wires attached to me like the hospital would want. And I know the whole argument of "you can just tell the hospital staff what you want," but after three hospital births all I can say is in my experience it just doesn't work that way. Not to mention, it is extremely hard to advocate for yourself in the middle of labor! I just don't want to put myself in an environment where I feel like I'm constantly saying "no" and feeling like I'm in an adversarial position with the people who are supposed to be helping me through this process.

I've also researched the safety issue. I'll probably talk about that more in a future post. However, suffice it to say that study after study demonstrates that home birth is just as safe, if not safer in some ways, than hospital birth for normal, low-risk women.

There just seems to be reason on top of reason why home birth makes a lot of sense for me. And even though it is way out of the cultural norm that I'm surrounded by, I think it is the right decision for me.

The Business of Being Born

I've finally gotten to see this movie. Wow. Having gone through three hospital births there were so many moments in the movie where I was like "yes, exactly." When they talk about the domino effect of hospital interventions, in my experience that is extremely true. Just stupid things like "let's start the IV, just in case." After that it is SO EASY to pump in a drug based on an expert authority's recommendation.

I saw it on DVD and there was some extra footage that I image you wouldn't get to see in the theater. In one of the followup interviews with a homebirth couple the mother talks about how she reached a point in her labor that if there were pain medications available, she would have taken them. What the homebirth midwife refers in the movie to as a "rock and a hard place." Man, I know that place! The homebirth mother says "but I had it easy, I was at home." Wow. She set herself up in an environment where she could get through the pain, the worst pain, without medication and she did. She went on to talk about how she could freely move around, remove all her clothes because nothing felt comfortable (she said her mother kept giving her a robe for modesty's sake--heh!), and squat whenever and wherever she wanted, because she was at home. Even if the hospital "officially" says you can do that, that's just not how things happen. I remember going to a hospital childbirth class before my first child was born and seeing a video of this woman with no clothes on in labor moving around, squating and doing all kinds of stuff in a hospital room. When I got to that same hospital in labor I most certainly did not get "let's change your position to manage your pain," I got "let's start an IV, let's strap this monitor to you and this monitor to you, now lift your legs I need to check you, lie down on your back...."

I got a taste of what a natural birth is like with my last birth, because my epidural did not work. I managed my pain, a drug did not. Don't misunderstand, at that moment I really wanted that drug to manage my pain, but that just wasn't how things played out. I have a history of that also.  With my first birth I had partial numbing on one side and with my second I had an tolerable level of numbing from the epidural. I have never been one of those people that as a result of an epidural couldn't feel or move her legs. No, I was always in pain, just less pain (sometimes). Because of this history, I mentally prepared myself to (as I told myself) "not loose your marbles" if the epidural doesn't work. "Keep your game face on."

This last time I told the staff clearly and repeatedly that the epidural wasn't working. When the staff started feeding me the all too familiar lines "give it 20 minutes, lay on your back, lay on your left side, lay on your right side, bla, bla, bla" I thought "I'm not doing this again." I gave it five minutes of excruciating, lying on my back pain and sat up and said "This is ridiculous." The nurse then scolded me and said "Well, it's never going to work now because you're sitting up and the medicine is just going to all go to your bottom" (whatever that means!). So I said "It's NOT working. I have to deal with this and I can't lying on my back. I don't care." And it was not discussed again.

Since then I've discussed my history with epidurals with a few different health care providers and they seem to think that (as I understand it) pain medicine runs through me pretty quick. I never thought to correlate the two until after, but I also have a history of dentists not believing me when I tell them "I can still feel that!" and then give me line "it's just pressure." You gotta love that. Right, like I (along with everyone else on the planet) don't know what pain is. Anyway, even though I did have pain medicine and IV fluids (and who knows what else) in me I still got that super high after the birth that I didn't get with the other births. I just remember feeling like I have to get up and go. I have things to do and energy to do it. I guess it was because I had to deal with the pain and I was dealing with the pain. I had a lot of pain with my first birth, but I wasn't dealing with it, things were very much out of control for me. I felt like I was being dragged along to places I did not want to go with my first birth. I clearly remember after my first birth having a very fearful and shell-shocked notion of "I don't know if I can do this again." Thankfully, time heals a lot.

I still don't know if homebirth is something I can/will do in the future. But after seeing this movie and doing some more reading on it (both pro and con), I know at least some part of me really wants to.