>>Wow. An unassisted childbirth. Sounds scary, but glad everything worked out great!<<
It actually isn’t scary at all, but I can see how it could sound like that! I was talking to my dh about why people think giving birth without medical professionals present must be such a frightening situation. A big part of this is because our society has bought into the belief that birth is dangerous and therefore has to take place in a hospital, because anything can and probably will go wrong in the absence of professionals. But I don’t buy into this mindset of danger and fear. I see labor and birth as a normal and healthy process, and generally when the birth goes so quickly, it’s because everything is fine. So to me the fact that things were going so fast would in and of itself be reassuring, if I had been worried. But I wasn’t.
I think giving birth in a hospital can be a pretty scary proposition – there are so many unknowns facing birthing women other than labor itself, factors that they would have control over in their homes. But maybe it’s only scary if you know that the infant and mortality rates are higher in the hospital, infection rates are higher in the hospitals, all the intervention rates that lead to further intervention and are linked with other complications are higher in the hospital – most people think they’re safer and view the frequency that all of these things occur in hospitals as proof that they need to be there, proof that birth itself is dangerous. “Imagine how much more dangerous it would have been if they hadn’t been in a hospital!” goes the reasoning.
A friend afterwards tongue in cheek asked me why I hadn’t called an ambulance. Besides the fact that the idea didn’t even enter my mind, that’s another option that sounds unpleasant. I think emergency services are wonderful, but for helping women in childbirth? Umm, that’s not exactly where their strengths are. I can just imagine them rushing into my room in emergency mode, insisting on taking me to the hospital even after the baby was born to be sure everything was okay.
>>A friend of mine had an unplanned HB and is sooo traumatized by it.<<
Not being prepared for a situation mentally can make anything traumatic. I also think that mental preparation in life tends to be one of the most important factors to being content. (Mental preparation for labor is the most important factor in having a positive birth, in my opinion.) That means working on accepting what is, rather than continuing to verbally or mentally hold on to your image of what you want. This is something that we all get to work on every single day, every time your child, spouse, or even the person in the store does something that doesn’t match what you want. I know that the more I can let go of what I think needs to happen, the more I can tune in to what H-shem wants and the happier I feel.
If I had mentally focused on how absolutely unacceptable it was to me that the midwife wouldn’t be able to make it in time, my insistence on my past plans would have kept me from being able to shift into being fine with what was going to happen.
>>Thanks so much for posting a photo for those of us who can’t be there to see him in person. It is a nice addition to your posts. <<
It’s my husband who’s to thank for this. I’ve never had the patience (or desire, to be more honest) to figure out how to put a photo on the blog. I also liked that he put it there – I didn’t ask him to. Maybe now I’ll be inspired by him to post photos from time to time. 🙂
>>Birth is truly a surprise and an adventure, not matter how many
times you’ve been through it. <<
This is so true. If I PG have another pregnancy, this is something I’m going to remember – not to think that I know what even my own normal is by virtue of being pregnant nine times before. Being ‘overdue’ was a much needed exercise in humility and trusting H-shem’s plan.
>>You had your supplies, your midwife was coming anyway, but that sounds like such an ideal birth. If you’re emotionally capable of handling such a thing, and medically prepared just in case, that sounds so special!<<
It really was an ideal birth – I’ve always felt homebirths were amazing experiences, but this birth was on a totally different level.
>>Can I ask what you do with your placenta? Do you bury it? If so, is it for halachic reasons? I have never gotten a clear answer if I need to bury mine or not.<<
Rav Heinemann was here this afternoon to check the baby (he was our mohel for the last two brissim, also) – too bad I didn’t read this in time or I would have asked him. I’ve never asked a shaila about this – in hospitals, placentas are thrown away and I’ve never heard of anyone wondering what to do instead. And until now, we’ve always thrown it away.
This time, the kids were talking about planting a special tree over it (they know a 20 year old whose family planted a cherry tree when she was born), which I thought was a beautiful idea. Because of their enthusiasm, I was researching fruit trees before Pesach, trying to figure out what kind to buy and where to put it, but now it’s so late in the season that it’s not really the time to plant fruit trees.
We always put the placenta in the freezer, and then throw it away right before the garbage truck comes; this time I figure I can leave it there a little longer until I decide what to do with it.
Avivah
regarding unassisted childbirth being scary, i mean, a midwife is trained to know what to do with complications, and if a husband doesnt know what to do when the baby is born that can also be scary- what would you do if the cord was around the neck- would your husband know what to do in such a case? etc… I read that the only way homebirths are safer than hospital births is if you have a midwife there… The midwife can help in an emergency, but an unprepared father… What if there was a hemorage or something- i assume the midwife would have brought pitocin or something, etc… What would you have done if the baby was blue or needed to be aspirated? I dunno, the thought scares me too much, even though i agree birth IS a natural process….
I just wanted to respond to “mamamoomoo” that technically this was a precipitate birth, not a (planned) unassisted birth. Avivah has never advocated unassisted birth in her blog. She did
have a midwife and prenatal care. Things went very fast and the midwife didn’t make it for
the birth. If she’d been planning to birth in the hospital, either the same thing would
have happened, or she would have given birth in the car en route — hardly an improvement in
safety.
To add:
Cord wrapped around the neck? Avivah’s husband could lift it up and move it around. He could have called the midwife back if there were complications.
Hemorrhage (CH”V)? The midwife was on her way anyway, she’d be there to monitor and take charge if necessary. Personally, I had excessive bleeding by my last baby. B”H it didn’t get to the point of PPH, but it was a lot of blood. The midwife handled it calmly and competently by administering Pitocin and, when that didn’t work fast enough, methergine (sp?) — she watched it closely to make sure it was subsiding and all was fine. If necessary, I had the time to go to the hospital which is 5 minutes or so away, but B”H we didn’t have to.
Baby was blue? Aspiration? That’s common. Usually the baby pinks up if it gets stimulated, CPR can be done, there is a nasal aspirator in the birth supplies. Etc. My sister’s baby was born with an Apgar of 2 and they were about to do CPR, but B”H his instincts kicked in before they even started, and he pinked up.
This was a planned homebirth. It didn’t go as planned, but it was a lot safer than had she woken up, realized she was in transition, and tried to drive to the hospital 🙂 You do your hishtadlus, but you can’t plan everything. This was the best possible outcome for such a precipitous realized labor (not sure if you can count the earlier part when it didn’t seem like things were moving along and you take a nap :D)
Now, for my intended comment…
I guess you can ask Rabbi Heinemann when you have a chance 🙂 I haven’t asked him, but I am not sure why I never thought of it.
I think in the hospital we don’t worry about it, but I have heard in homebirths some people do since it is an organ. It seems to be a machlokes, and I have never gotten a straight answer. Being that I live in an apartment with no grass to plant, planting wouldn’t be so easy. We have also kept it in our freezer till we got around to double bagging it and putting it out when the garbage men come to empty the Dumpster. I don’t know if that really is the l’chatchila.
If you get an answer, please share! But take your time, really. No rushing to the computer on my account. I am not having a homebirth for quite a while I imagine!
No, I don’t advocate planned unassisted childbirth; I hope that in my post I didn’t seem to be making it an ideal. But when things happen, you need to be able to deal with life on life’s terms. Shivering with fear at the thought of all the awful things that could go wrong isn’t going to be helpful. Dealing with reality is.
When I realized the midwife wouldn’t make it, a couple of potential complications quickly ran through my mind, as well as how I would handle them. One was the cord around the neck – like LN said, what is wound around can be unwound (slipped over the head) as well. Another was hemorrage, which I have experienced, but I wasn’t concerned about this time because of the efficient labor pattern. But fundal massage would have been the instant response to that and worked to slow down bleeding until the midwife got there. Another was a large baby and shoulder dystocia; I felt this was going to be a much larger baby than my others, but the position I prefer for birthing is anyway the recommended position for the Gaskin maneuver and I wasn’t worried that even a larger baby would be big enough for dystocia to be a problem in the first place.
The baby’s signs were excellent every time he was monitored, and I had no reason to be concerned about him being in distress – amniotic fluids were clear, heart tones were good, movements were good. So I wasn’t worried about that.
And again, my midwife was on the way (she ran several red lights trying to make it in time!) – she was there ten minutes after the baby was born, before the placenta was expelled.
Look, there’s always room for something to happen, and a person can listen to all the stories out there of when it does, but as I said, when labor goes this quickly, you don’t usually see these complications.
You did great!
BTW, I asked my husband (again!) about the placenta, and he said it’s not halacha like when one R”L loses a body part that needs burying, but something recommended for the health of the baby…or something like that.