Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Must... Keep... Mouth... Shut....

Please, somebody, read this and yell with me.

(I think the author did a fantastic job. I wouldn't have been half as fair.)

7 comments:

Missy said...

I don't even know where to begin.


You know I just have to let this percolate.

I can not stop thinking about my own birth experience of course and how much guilt I still carry around about #1's birth. I can't imagine what I would be like if my doctor had essentially blamed me for how things went, as she did to that couple who went to the hospital after 72 f'in hours of labor and virtually no dilation.

I am just disturbed and can not form coherent thoughts right now.

Ali said...

THAT'S THE PART THAT MADE ME SCREAM TOO! As someone who experienced 12 hours of back labor, I can't begin to imagine what she went through.

I read the comments on NY Mag and most of them were of the "home birth vs. hospital birth" ilk, which I didn't think was the point of the story. This was about a practitioner whose ego has taken over all sense of what is sane, compassionate and logical.

I also have a bone to pick with the French OBGYN who claimed that women who give birth by C-section (or with the help of an epidural) won't be capable of bonding with their children. Bite me, dude. Bite me.

Missy said...

Yeah he can kiss my ass. I feel that I have bonded quite well with the child I delivered via c-section,so as to prevent a recurrance of the near death experience we went through with her sister.

You tell me how a c-section with a baby in my arms right interferes more with the bonding process than a natural birth followed by the inability to touch your child for three days beginning immediately post partum.

He can Kiss. My. Ass.

Gee, this hasn't worked me up at all!

Woman with a Hatchet said...

That woman in labor for 72 hours who was only at 2 cm? Yah, that would have been ME.

Except that I was IN the hospital and there was no way out but c-section.

Um...and I'm BONDED with all three of my kids.

Except for when they're screaming, then I'm busy coming unglued. : )

Rob T said...

I would love to do a home birth... provided I lived next door to a hospital.

As easily as medical doctors can be "corrupted" and such in their practices, so too can a hippie doulla.

electriclady said...

I knew which story it was going to be before I even clicked on the link. Nothing to say but AAAARRRGH!!!!

Colleen said...

I had pretty good experiences in the hospital with my girls, overall. The closest midwife or doula lives in Wichita, two hours from here, so that was never even an option for us. But I don't think I ever would have had a home birth, personally. A couple of my friends out here have had stillborn babies, and that was so traumatic for all of us who knew them. There are so many "what if?" questions in that situation, and if it ever God forbid happened to me, I didn't want one of mine to be "What if I had delivered in the hospital?"

The goal of any birth is a healthy baby and healthy mom. I always feel bad when a new mom is upset b/c her birth "didn't go according to her birth plan." Usually someone else is making her feel bad about it, kind of like the whole breastfeeding/bottlefeeding thing. And I always say, "It might not have been your original ideal, but it was the perfect birth for this baby, because he's alive and so are you."

So far, in my nine years of being a parent, the only thing I have learned is that parenthood is always what happens after your ideals meet reality. And we need to quit being so hard on each other and so dogmatic about it. Most of us are doing the best we can!