There are a lot of options when it comes to selecting a specific birth experience. There are traditional hospital births, birthing centers (an intriguing idea), and more and more it's becoming popular to have a home birth. I know several people that opted to have their baby at home. I personally would not want to have a home birth. My biggest concern there is that if something went wrong fast, I would not have access to the care that I might need. It would require a life flight to the hospital and that is not an experience I want to have. Secondly, I like the idea of people cleaning up after me and taking care of me, and lastly, I need that separation from my kids so I can rest for a couple of days before having to focus on them too. There are also a lot of pain management choices that one has to make.
So getting back to this documentary, they really pushed for the fact that a woman is capable of birthing a baby on her own without the surgeons and hospitals and we as woman are being cheated. Now here's where my real rant begins. I am all for having a natural childbirth experience. I did it with two of my four and love that I made that choice. However, this is not a choice for everyone. We have medical care and if someone has a desire to feel less pain through an epidural, why do the makers of that show think they have the right to say that they are less of a woman for using the technology that we have? I'm all for people choosing what is right for them and their family, regardless of anything else. The show quoted the evils of induced scheduled labors. This time around I'm actually considering setting a date and if I don't go by that date, scheduling an induction. This is something in the past that I would have never considered. However, because of my particular circumstances, I'm looking at it. I have a history of rapid labor and my hospital is an hour away. That's a bit scary. I have help coming into town so the timing has to be good, etc. It doesn't make me a bad mom because I would consider using modern medicine to get where we need to be when we need to be there.
I'm also thinking I will try my hand at an epidural. I've had the natural experience enough and really don't like transition. :-) I wouldn't mind missing it. Now grant you, I must warn all mothers to be that even if they are choosing to get an epidural, they should prepare for the possibility of not getting it in time or that it might not work correctly (both experiences that I have had). I decided last time with Henry that I was going to get one and it was great, right until the time that my contractions broke through and it stopped working. Plus the anesthesiologist had gone home so I was stuck transitioning with no help...yet again. It might be nice to actually have some pain relief up to the end and I'm hopeful that this will happen this time. Am I to feel guilty because I feel this way? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's good to know your options. It's great to know what you want and have a provider that is supportive of that. However, ultimately, a mom needs to do what is best for her at that time in her life and follow that. There is no one right way. So much of parenting is taking what fits into your own personal parenting philosophy and throwing the rest out the window. I'm grateful to have had the experiences in my past that help me be less impressionable and stronger in my ideas about how I want things to go for Sadie and I.