Several weeks ago my husband came home with a story of a fellow co-worker who was almost do for their first baby. "She's sick of being pregnant", "Just wants the baby out", and "The doctor says they'll induce her" were some of the things that were said. Both of us were immediately concerned and confused as to why someone would simply let a doctor interfere with the natural birth process if nothing were wrong. I grabbed one of my resources and started researching induction. The statistics are terrible. Basically, if you don't want surgery, don't let the doctors do ANYTHING! First time pregnancies go an average of 42 weeks. At 40 weeks you haven't even reached full gestation. Babies come when they are ready. Doctors induce at 40 weeks, labor rarely kicks in (unless the baby was about to come anyway) which leads to a c-section since the doctors have now messed with things. When labor does kick in during an induction the contractions are so abnormally strong that the baby often goes into distress therefore creating a need for a c-section. It's most often a one-way road to not a bad birth experience. The following week my husband reported that instead of induction the doctors had decided to simply "strip her membranes". This made my heart drop more. A few weeks prior I had connected with a women who's doctor had done the same procedure. This is essentially when the doctor pushes the bag of waters away from the cervix making it weaker in hopes of inducing labor. This women that I met went home that night and started labor but also developed severe pain, chills, and a high fever. They called the hospital several times and the hospital said that women always have chilld in labor. This is not only not true but usually happens around the time of transition. This women waited at home until her gut feeling drove her and her husband to go in. When they got there someone finally realized that something was very terribly wrong. She ended up having an emergency c-section and treated for a massive internal staph infection. The baby died shortly after birth because it was so severely infected. This had happened because her doctor stripped her membranes. Staph infections come from the outside and wouldn't find their way up the birth canal unless it was brought there by another source, like a doctors hand. The infection was also SO strong that it spread that fast and killed her baby. Virulent infections such as that are only found in hospitals and medical facilities. There was no need for her doctor to have taken any action at all. Our bodies are perfect and know what they are doing, much more so than doctors. This lady, like myself, found herself recoverying from massive surgery and grieving a baby.
My husband and I talked about mentioning the risks to this coworker but decided they weren't close enough and the work environment was conducive enough. Yesterday we heard the baby was born.....via c-section, and mom's "in some pain". Really? No kidding. I started crying when Tyler told me that. Her first baby. Her first birth experience. And she has to spend the next year recovering instead of walking around holding and smiling with her baby. She'll have to fight hospitals tooth and nail to try a vbac, if she even decides to try that route. If not she'll undergo more cesareans only to double and triple her scar tissue, adhesions, recovery time and increase her chances every single time of a twisted bowel, ruptured uterus, blood transfusion, cutting the baby and the list goes on and on. Why would someone simply follow what a doctor wanted without asking questions? Why do any of us do that? Isn't there any intuition left for any of us to follow?
It was very clear to me today in my daughter's first grade classroom. I don't honestly think there is much intuition left or that we allow ourselves to hear it. I think it comes from the society that we are living in. We breed our independ thoughts out of people at an early age. Let's face it, only a nation of followers and not independent thinkers would have voted in the current administration. The less people think, they more they accept. Today was my daughter's Christmas party in her classroom. I volunteered to go in and make Gingerbread houses with the kids. I sat there as the teacher explained the directions. They were very simple: use the frosting as glue, use the graham crackers as sides of the house, use the candy to decorate. The instructions lasted ten seconds but the questions the kids had lasted ten minutes. "Can we make a door?" "Do we need windows?" "Can I make a roof?" "Does the roof have to be pointed?" "Do the colors have to match?" and it went on and on. These kids are so used to following directions to a 'T' that they couldn't understand when the teacher told them "There are no rules. Just have fun". Even after she added that line the questions still came. This was a room full of 6 and 7 year olds and they couldn't even feel free enough to just build a house however they wanted to. It took a long time but it seemed like they were unable to think on their own....already! I'm even guilty of teaching my kids to "read the instructions", and "follow the directions". Unfortunately my son has a teacher who is often wrong and he never stands up for himself. I have a folder of papers that she's mispelled, marked wrong when they are right or marked right when they are wrong. He comes and tells me "but mommy she was wrong" but he doesn't feel like he can say that to her, even when I tell him to. Why? Because she's the teacher. Just like we act around doctors. We're all so good at following directions instead of following common sense. Our doctors tell us "you'll need a c-section" and we nod our heads and go "okay" because they're the doctors and surely they know best. They say we need to be induced and even if their is a voice in our heads that says "my baby's just fine" we nod our heads because that is the almighty doctor. We need to value our own wisdom more. We're smart people and we don't give ourselves enough credit. Question authority. Figure out your feelings. Make decisions for yourself. Teachers are just waiting to retire. Doctors are just avoiding lawsuits and want to make it home for dinner. Take care of you and your family because nobody else is going to.
It's been four and a half months since my cesarean and I was up all last night in extreme pain. I had to crawl my way out of the bedroom so that I wouldn't wake up my husband. To make matters worse I've shown my records to a list of doctors in several states. The morning my son was born we had an ultrasound that showed things were getting worse. The doctor said "we need to take him now". Other doctors since then have said that according to everything that was happening on the ultrasounds, it was obvious my son was dying and would not just be fine the minute he was born. So my doctor had one of two motivations. Do a c-section to show that you "tried" to save the baby so that I can't turn around and sue her. Or collect the 40k in insurance money that a cesarean costs before you send me home. Doctors are not honest and they very rarely care about you. God did not intend babies to be born in such a way. Surgeries are good when what the doctors will do to you is better than what is happening to you. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Research. Read. Ask questions. Get empowered. Or you'll fall inline like cattle and not be in control of your own life.
Kylee, I agree with your statements about how birth is a natural process. I recently had a friend who had to fight her way through this process, with doctors telling her many of the same things you mention here. She was lucky enough that the doctors backed down and let her do it her way.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that you are going to be a leader and a teacher in this rhelm of the world in order to prevent others from the indescribable hardships that you and your family have faced and will continue to face. We love you so very much, and are always here for you.