I've been trying to get my head around this concept of a birth plan. The websites I visit and books I read all say that now is the time to start thinking about my birth plan. Okay. Think, think, think.
What exactly is it? Well, in a nutshell, it's the debate over natural vs. drugs. Hospital vs. home. Doula vs. Doc.
Some of these questions I can answer very easily. Yes Hospital, no to the home birth (although, I do have some underlying anxiety that I'll go into labor during a massive Colorado snow storm and will be unable to get to the hospital). Other questions - like do I want an epidural - are a bit trickier. On one hand, pain relief seems like a good thought to me. On the other hand, the more I read about some of the pain relief options available - like the epidural - the more anxious I become. And then there are these "birthing methods". The Bradley Method. Lamaze. The Husband Coached Childbirth (that one gives me a ridiculous images of Scott in a referee jersey and a whistle). It's just kind of overwhelming. My thought has always been that I'm going to walk into that hospital pregnant and in labor, and a couple days later, we're leaving with a healthy baby. That's the plan. But the details inbetween are starting to get fuzzy and I feel like I need to be better about educating myself so I can make some informed decisions in the moment.
So, like any data oriented person, I turn to books. Off I go to Barnes & Noble thinking that there's got to be some bible of birth that will shed a little light on the subject for me. I just want a concise list of pros and cons and maybe some statistics thrown in (I like me some statistics). But I came up empty handed. If there is such a book out there, someone please tell me, because all I could find were rather editorialized tomes with blissed out pictures of hippies during childbirth and somewhat preachy authors advocating for natural, orgasmic births. What-ev-er. I mean seriously, some of this stuff was traumatizing. I do not see Scott and I naked in a field somewhere gazing at eachother as I push a watermelon out of my lady parts. Puhlease.
At a recent appointment, I spoke with my doctor about my data seeking conundrum. I think she was a bit surprised. She printed out some information on childbirth from for me, but wasn't anything I hadn't read already. My health provider is Kaiser, who I've been pretty darn happy with so far, and my doc did explain their philosophy on childbirth which sounded pretty good to me: episiotomies are no longer standard, they'll provide a whirlpool tub and birthing ball to help me find a comfortable position, they'll let me labor naturally, they'll let me walk around. Okay. That all sounds good. Then, she suggested I sign up for the birthing classes. (Yeah, check that, doc - already did. I'm a planner.) And that was really about it.
In the meantime, I've turned to women I know, trust and respect who have been wonderful about sharing their birth stories with me. Until recently, I hadn't spoken with anyone who passed on the epidural and I was beginning to wonder if they existed - like unicorns. But since, I've spoken with three of them - all with different points of view. And what was most comforting is knowing that they struggled with the same decision making process that I am. I've also spoken with other women who have had an epidural, loved it, and didn't feel "gipped" by their birth experiences (which is what a lot of those hippie books claim). Still others went in with a bullet-proof birth plan that had to be thrown out the window and ended up with a C-Section delivery and turns out, they weren't all that traumatized about it. With all that in mind, I'm feeling a bit calmer about the whole situation now and am beginning to think that my initial instinct on this birth plan thing was probably right on. I want to be present and involved during the whole process and to experience it all in the moment and ultimately, the goal is to walk out of that hospital with a healthy baby.
18 weeks, 5 days and counting...
No comments:
Post a Comment