keelyblog

I love second-hand clothes. I love when people give me big bags of clothes for my kids. What I don’t love is fighting the stink of perfumes that often accompany the nicest clothes. Why can’t clothes smell like fabric and people smell like people? I wonder if most people realize that perfumes contain petroleum. I wonder if people realize that fabric softeners just coat clothing in grease to counteract all the build-up left by detergents.

What really gets me the most, is that people are so accustomed to perfumey smells that they forget why perfume was invented. Perfumes were invented to cover the smell of people who did not bathe. In a society where most of the population washes daily, they are superfluous. People who wear perfumes and/or wash their clothes with perfumated detergent or fabric softener might as well wear a sign that says, “Yes, I am dirty and I need perfumes to cover the stink.”

Please, people, if your clothes are clean–don’t stink them up. If you are clean–don’t stink yourself up.

What a shame our medical establishment is being so backward just as the British one is moving forward. By the end of 2009, the UK plans to have consistent midwifery care in hospital, home, or birthcenter. They are calling it a “national choice guarantee”. We are so far behind them in terms of decent maternity care, and if we left it to ACOG and the AMA, we would be running backwards.

Last year in San Francisco, the last real hospital midwifery program lost its funding. Read this. My mother-in-law sent me the article when it came out. The most shocking part, both then and now, is how the doctors describe the care as “boutique” and “unnecessary” and also less safe! How could getting more care be less safe? They contradict themselves.

For any new readers there might be: In every other developed nation (Western Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand) a low-risk family gets primary care from a midwife and has that midwife give CONTINUOUS ONE-ON-ONE care throughout active labor. Continuous one-on-one care from a medical specialist in vaginal birth. Obstetricians are specialists in surgical birth.

I know recently my consistent chant is to stay out of the hospital whenever possible! This is only because I live in the USA. I do not believe homebirth is 100% right for every low-risk family. Even in Holland, only about 1/3 of women choose homebirth. The problem is our system. The “standard procedures” in a maternity ward border on criminal and in some cases, they actually are. Women are not being given the right of informed consent.

So while, homebirth is not for everyone, hospital birth in the US is not really for anyone. Some people who need to be there, should be there. The only way to change policy in a market economy is to use our money. Do not support a failing hospital system and they will have to change. Women, babies, families deserve to have the standard of maternity care that puts the rest of the developed world ahead of us in healthy outcomes. So for the 70-80% of women who do not need a hospital, please to do not give them your money until they are ready to give you what you deserve.

The Birth

The happy, censored, labor story can be found on Chrisy’s blog.

What is missing from that story is the huge fight my husband and I got into in the middle of labor. After my mom had dropped off my daughter and ran off before I had a chance to protest, I was out of sorts. I was upset. This is the time that Mark came in to tell me that he was going to go get some coffee. I lost it. I couldn’t believe that everyone was acting like nothing special was going on. I am in labor, people! My husband said, “I thought that’s what you wanted with the homebirth–having everything be like normal.” WHAT!!!???!!! When did I EVER say that?! I have always said that I needed MORE attention; MORE coddling; more, more, more–never less! He had been right there the whole time I needed him during my first birth. Sure, it was way more intense and I couldn’t speak, but still… Where had that loving, attentive husband gone? I knew one place he wasn’t going and that was to get coffee. My husband does not remember this fight. He has a gift of only remember the good times.

After this discussion, he decides to be sweet and takes me on walks and such to try and help the labor come back. Then after crying over the phone to Christy, I was able to take a nap, enjoy some quiet time with my daughter, and really get back into giving birth.

I wanted another fast and intense birth, only this time at home. What I got was a long and stressful birth, just like my pregnancy had been–long and stressful. I am so glad we did not have the added stress of getting in the car and a bunch of strangers with needles. I am so glad to have a midwife that I still email regularly–despite not planning on any more pregnancies and having to move so far away. I am so blessed to have my healthy family and to know what a joy giving birth can be!

That Last Month

And boy, what a month it was. For starters, we were planning a move across the country. My husband got a job at Microsoft and we had to go. I refused to move before the birth, so everything was dependent on when a baby might decide to come into the world. Ha! No way to really schedule that in any healthy way! We had to find an apartment to move into and rent it. My husband had to leave for a few days for an apartment hunting trip. I got in a huge fight with and wasn’t speaking to another friend. My estranged father started calling all the time. I started having contractions.

They would come and go. One evening they were bad enough that my husband insist that I call the midwife. She told me to stay in bed the rest of the evening and all night, then come see her in the morning. Despite it being his idea that I get the midwife’s advise, he was not co-operative with me on bed rest. We fought a bunch that night. I’m pretty sure he was feeling all the stress of our situation as well.

In the morning, it didn’t seem like the baby was about to come too early, so she collected some urine to test for a urinary tract infection just in case. No UTI. That night I had contractions again.

From then on, every few nights I would have contractions. As soon as I finally went to sleep, they would stop. I should note that I was not getting very much sleep. We got through the early-labor scare without any baby. Now, I really could go into labor safely at any time. This is what I wanted. When the contractions would come at night, I tried to help them along by walking through the house and anything else I could think of. Even so, I would eventually go to sleep and they would stop. Every morning I woke up a little more heartbroken that my baby didn’t come. Several nights I slept in my recliner with my headphones on–sleeping and waking in small intervals. I started reading about prodromal labor. This is what was happening to me!

Then it was time for Christy to go to MANA. We had discussed it and decided that if I went into labor while she was gone, Patti would take over as primary midwife, with Faith as the back-up midwife for the baby. During an appointment with Patti, she said that she would feel more comfortable if Vicki were the back-up because she didn’t know if Faith would be able to get to a fast delivery on time. In fact, she had already discussed this plan with Vicki. Like a fool, I said, “Sure, I met her.” I didn’t even mean it when I said it. I was just so stunned that Patti had made arrangements for my birth without talking to me about it first. If nothing else, I am at least the casting director of this show and was very upset by behind-my-back arrangements. I emailed all this to Christy, but assured her that I would sort it out. I emailed Patti to make clear that I would prefer Faith as the second as I had already planned. I even made a sign of phone numbers with a little not to call Faith first if I went into active labor suddenly. Then I refused to leave the house while Christy was out of town.

The last thing I wanted was all this midwife confusion happening and I wouldn’t even be at home! My mother-in-law came to help with the cleaning and sorting of stuff to prepare for moving after the birth. With her in the house, I let my husband take my daughter to the other end of town to go to Maker Faire. I did not go. The night Christy was supposed to get back, my husband wanted us to go somewhere. I sat and watched the ABIA website to see what flights were getting in. When either flight that I assumed Christy might be arriving on had landed, I agreed to go out.

Later, I even went to our friend’s annual party on the actual day I was “due”! I was having nightmares every night that the professional movers would show up to pack while I was in labor. I had to schedule them a month in advance–so they were coming on Nov 2, baby or no baby. I’m still having contractions every night that would keep me up to the point of exhaustion, then dissipate as soon as I fell asleep.

We decided that all this prodromal labor was my body saying that it couldn’t handle all this stress and carrying a big heavy baby while the baby saying, “Hold on! I’m not ready yet!”