Letters to the Editor
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It's about getting the baby here safely
After giving birth twice (recently, at that) in a progressive community and revelling in all manner of my friends' birth stories, I have to say this: Too often women (yes, you Ricki Lake) are making childbirth about themselves, their experience. It's not about how you feel while giving birth, if it's some fantastically satisfying and "healing" event in your life. Ideally, giving birth would be all those things. But, really, childbirth is about getting the baby here -- and out of you -- safely and in good health by whatever means necessary.
Both of my deliveries were difficult; both babies got stuck in the chute. My vagina is also awesome, but not so awesome that it could change the way my second baby was facing or get both of her shoulders out from under my pelvic bone. My doctor did that. If I had attempted "natural" childbirth at home -- or even with a less skilled OB/GYN -- at the very least my child would be damaged, likely dead, and I could've very well died along with her.
That's the reality of childbirth. It's not all golden sunshine and immediate bonding. Bad things naturally happen, as they do everywhere in nature. The experience of labor and delivery is brief -- guilt and sorrow over babies needlessly hurt or dead last forever. Why risk your baby's life?
I'll say this, too: Both of my babies had to go to the nursery for oxygen and observation. My husband/their father was with them every moment they were not with me. I was frantic with worry and fear -- welcome to parenthood! -- but they were bonding with their dad. And I would again gladly give up those first hours with them in order to not risk their lives.
They're alive! They're here! I don't give a damn that I couldn't walk for hours or pee for days or couldn't cuddle them to my breast all covered in goo. They live, they breathe, we love.