Getting Birth Right(?)

I've been thinking a lot lately about birth. I am lucky enough in my life to (finally) be surrounded by many vibrant, amazing women with children of their own, and inevitably when we gather around a bottle of wine or a bowl of dip, we end up trading birth stories. For a long time I thought this was sort of a guilty pleasure, the uterine equivalent of reading "OK" magazine, if you will. I have no doubt my husband thinks every time I hang out with another woman we talk vaginas, so proving him right again and again felt a little cliche. But recently I have begun to rethink that. Seeing and hearing women talk about their births, some as recent as weeks ago and some as long ago as decades, is so incredibly beautiful. They say you forget the pain, and I don't know if that's true, but no one forgets their BIRTH. No one forgets the fear, the joy, or the mother f-ing ring of fire. And then of course, us being women, no one forgets the emotional CRAP we have attached to our birth- whether or not we did it "right," or "failed," or landed somewhere in between.  I see in certain circles (thankfully not amongst my own friends) a lot of judgement- or even shaming- of women for choices they made or didn't make in their births. And that too has had me thinking.

Is that a baby in there or are you just happy to see me?

When I got pregnant for the first time I was 24. Nine years have passed since then, and while I have probably killed a lot of brain cells and lost a lot of collagen in those nine years, I also have grown up. A lot. I wonder how my births would have been different had I not been ignorant of my own choices, my own power, or my own strength. While I don't (and WON'T) regret the choices I made, I do wonder if I would make different ones armed with the knowledge and confidence I carry now.

I am the type of person who has always hesitated to take medications, from aspirin to prescription, but as soon as I had my first contraction, I was willing to sell the baby my soul for epidural. Do I regret that? I don't really know. I read the other day that giving birth is the second most painful thing a person can do, bested only by being burned alive. How often do you hear people talking about how amazing they are because they didn't have pain medications that one time they were on fire?

With Jack, I was pre-eclamptic. My body swelled so much, so quickly, that I gained ten pounds in a weekend. The fact that this was eight years ago and I didn't have WebMD to scare the shit out of me is probably the only reason I made it through that weekend. When my midwife took one look at me, she had me admitted to the hospital, and I was induced. My cervix went from 2 cm to 10 cm in 45 minutes. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. My husband took one look at me and tried to buy me an epidural in the gift shop. I think I might have tried to make out with the anesthesiologist when he finally arrived. All I know for sure is when he walked into the room choirs of angels starting singing and a bright light shone down on him from the heavens. I know anethesthiologists are well paid but whatever he makes it is NOT ENOUGH.

When Maria's labor started, it was so mild compared to that induction, that I argued with anyone who had the nerve to tell me I was in labor. I insisted it was a stomach virus. I laid on the couch watching day time TV, eating watermelon, and wondering when labor would actually start. I took the epidural this time because when people tell you that you forget the pain of previous births THEY ARE DIRTY LIARS and my uterus was having PTSD flashbacks.

With Gabby, my third, labor started like the gun going off at the start of a race. One second we were eating a casserole (poor choice, trust me), the next I had contractions two minutes apart that lasted a minute. I was kind of afraid she was going to be born on the kitchen floor amidst the dirty casserole pans. We had no midwife this time, and were greeted at the hospital by a resident who asked me: "and what brings you in here this evening?" This time, I was given an epidural with a PUMP to manage the medications myself, and I sat in total numbness, relishing my first alone time with my husband in months. I count those few hours the three of us had alone  (me, Nick, and the pump) amongst the most romantic of our marriage. And this is even after taking into account the fact that every few minutes, someone checked my cervix.

So no, I have never known the thrill of a natural childbirth. And there are many, many people who would tell me having an epidural, or an induction, or even a C section, is not "right." And since I have made no secret of my own desires to have kids by the dozen, the idea of having another opportunity to "get it right" is not without appeal. But what would that even look like? Who am I to say? The idea of feeling arrogant enough to judge a birth story as right or wrong feels, well, wrong. I think what I can confidently say (nine years and three births later) is that for me, getting it right means having a circle of women to share my story (whatever it is) with who DON'T judge me.

That, and not pooping on the table.