Birth

So, I’m 35 weeks pregnant today and it’s that time again: Time to start thinking seriously about birth! It’s a little difficult for me to really focus on birth currently because of everything else going on. I’ve thought about it a little – after all, we’re about to move partly because I cannot imagine giving birth in the house we’re in right now – but not as much as I think I should have.

So, why now? Why in the middle of packing and finding crazy ant nests moving from the heating ducts to under a chair in the living room am I suddenly thinking about birth? Well, partly because I’m 35 weeks along, but also partly because I went to a baby shower yesterday and even though the mother is having twins and therefore a c-section, the topic of birth did come up.

It’s always interesting talking to my dad’s family about the choices that my family has made – breastfeeding, home birth, elimination communication, co-sleeping etc. – because they just don’t understand why anyone would make those choices. The choices I’ve made seem difficult to them and I’m pretty sure that they see at least a few of them as just another way I’m tied down to my children. The funny thing about that is that I view my choices as the easiest and best choices I could possibly have made. I cannot imagine having to sterilize bottles or get up in the middle of the night because my child is crying in another room. I cannot imagine having to let my baby cry for a few minutes because I have to mix up formula when it’s so much easier and quicker to just hike my shirt up and let them eat.

If I’m being completely honest with myself, I don’t do these things because science backs me up at all. Really, I do these things mainly because I’m lazy. One of the main reasons I started looking into home birth wasn’t because of some “birth experience” or because it’s safer for low-risk women or because I’m some crazy hippie person, but because riding in a car during labor (and possibly giving birth in the car!) just did not appeal to me at all. Why go somewhere else to have the baby when you can simply stay right at home?

The proven safety of home birth was merely a side perk that helped me to justify my choice to other people. The amazing experience of home birth was a very cool perk that just happened to exist, but wasn’t my main reason. After all, I’ve never had a hospital birth so I truly have nothing to compare home birth to.

Anyhow, back to my dad’s family and the interesting things they have to say about my choices. Yesterday my dad’s mom (my Grandma) mentioned that she loved her hospital births. She went to the hospital, they knocked her out, and when she woke up they gave her the baby. A couple of older family members who’d had similar births agreed with her and I smiled and nodded, not wanting to open my mouth lest too much come out. It’s not as if they’ll be having any more babies, they’re happy with their births, and it’s not as if they’ll be making me change my mind or as if I’m defensive about my choice.

However, the truth is that the very thought of having a baby and not being able to remember it terrifies me. My first thought after contemplating what they said was: How did they know that they got their baby back? I know that nowadays they have all sorts of fancy equipment to prevent babies from going to the wrong parents, but back then… if all the mothers were knocked out (which, most were) and if all the babies were taken to the nursery (which, they were) then how did anyone know that they got their baby? It’s not as if they saw the baby before it was whisked away to be washed and examined and the fathers weren’t allowed in the room either. It’s a very scary thought to me.

I don’t know. They’re obviously happy and they had healthy babies and that’s really what matters, but it’s odd to me that they can say so confidently that their unknown births were so much better than fully experienced births when they’ve never experienced birth. Neither can I honestly say that mine were better than theirs, but I can genuinely say that my births were amazing events that I am blessed to have been able to remember!

The amazing event isn’t the most important thing about birth – the most important thing about birth is that the mother and baby are happy and healthy – but the memory of my births is important. At least to me. Whether in the future I have a home birth, a managed hospital birth, or a c-section, I wouldn’t want to be put completely under and I would want to remember the moment my baby was first held up for me to see even if I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. I would want as much of the experience as I could have even if I couldn’t have the full experience at home. I would, at the very least, want to remember what my baby looked like right after he or she was born. Before a bath. Before an exam. Before the cord was cut.

Birth is amazing and newborns are amazing! I’m so glad that I live in a time when I wasn’t forced to blank out the entire experience or motivated by fear to seek out obliteration of my own volition. I’m so glad that I live in a time when other, more experienced, mothers could encourage me to look more into birth and what it means before I had my first baby. I used to wish I had been born a few decades before the 80s, but no longer. I was born in the correct time and place and I am so thankful for that. I’m also infinitely grateful to my friends and family members who stuck by me and encouraged me to make different choices than most of them did.

So now, it’s time to begin thinking about my next birth. A birth that will happen in two to seven weeks from today. The day that I will meet the stranger who’s currently living in my womb and poking me almost constantly with feet, knees, hands, and elbows. Who is this person? I can’t wait to find out! What will the journey be like? I’m looking forward to experiencing it! It will be difficult but I can do it – I’ve done it before. It might be long and will almost certainly be intense but there’s always an end – it will end with a brand new human being to love.

So soon. Very soon! It won’t be long now.

~B.