Fear
I’m reading this book, Birthing From Within, by England & Horowitz. Every time I read further, I feel really distressed, because all this time I have just been settling on birthing at the hospital. It has felt like the only option because we have to go on Medicaid.
I really don’t want to go to the hospital to have the cub. It’s a primordial, deep-seated feeling. I won’t be able to relax, I won’t have the privacy I know I’ll need. I really want to birth in a safe place where there’s just Adam and a midwife that I can trust. I trust my doctor, but she’ll probably only be present for moments, not hours. I’ll be at the mercy of the labor nurse randomly assigned to me. There’s the possibility that my wish for a non-medicated, natural birth won’t be respected and upheld. What if they make me lie down or restrict my movement?
The solution is to ask questions. I know. But the only person who will answer them right now is my doctor. And my doctor is just one person. She’s not going to line up the stars for me. She’s not even promising to be there; she has a family of her own. And the hospital is a faceless, pulsating cortex, operating on policy. It feels like Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, where the massive brain sits up on the dais, neither alive nor dead, but definitely unfeeling.
I hate being at the mercy of a system governed by health insurance. Today I watched Democrats and Republicans battle it out in the Senate, over what they are going to do about the health insurance crisis we have; whether federal legislation will pass and whether it will overrule current state law. I never really understood how much is decided for us by others while we have no idea, no clue. We stand by and have no voice. We do nothing.
I feel my hands and feet are tied. Gagged. And they’re coming at me with the monitors, the Doppler, the needles, the scalpels, the IVs, the epidurals, the catheters, the antiseptics, the drapes, the hospital beds & bright lights. The bustle and intrusion.
Tell me, how does one give birth in the midst of all that?
I really don’t want to go to the hospital to have the cub. It’s a primordial, deep-seated feeling. I won’t be able to relax, I won’t have the privacy I know I’ll need. I really want to birth in a safe place where there’s just Adam and a midwife that I can trust. I trust my doctor, but she’ll probably only be present for moments, not hours. I’ll be at the mercy of the labor nurse randomly assigned to me. There’s the possibility that my wish for a non-medicated, natural birth won’t be respected and upheld. What if they make me lie down or restrict my movement?
The solution is to ask questions. I know. But the only person who will answer them right now is my doctor. And my doctor is just one person. She’s not going to line up the stars for me. She’s not even promising to be there; she has a family of her own. And the hospital is a faceless, pulsating cortex, operating on policy. It feels like Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, where the massive brain sits up on the dais, neither alive nor dead, but definitely unfeeling.
I hate being at the mercy of a system governed by health insurance. Today I watched Democrats and Republicans battle it out in the Senate, over what they are going to do about the health insurance crisis we have; whether federal legislation will pass and whether it will overrule current state law. I never really understood how much is decided for us by others while we have no idea, no clue. We stand by and have no voice. We do nothing.
I feel my hands and feet are tied. Gagged. And they’re coming at me with the monitors, the Doppler, the needles, the scalpels, the IVs, the epidurals, the catheters, the antiseptics, the drapes, the hospital beds & bright lights. The bustle and intrusion.
Tell me, how does one give birth in the midst of all that?
posted by obfuscare at 12:57 AM
1 Comments:
Don't be freaked out that I read your blog. I gain inspiration from your thoughts and experiences.
I ususally don't comment because I have nothing to say that I'm sure you haven't already thought in better words.
Well, I do have some advice on the midwife thing. Well, not really advice as much as pushing the problem (which isn't really a "problem") onto someone else.
Anyway, Norma Morrison could give you lots of advice about how Portia's pregnancy went with having a midwife AND being in a hospital. I would connect you with Portia, but she's not in the country, as you probably know.
Dr. Morrison's e-mail is: njmorrison@milligan.edu
Peace,
Carrie
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