So I have roommates. I own my home, but I have roommates to help make ends meet. One single female and a couple, who moved in when she was 5 1/2 months pregnant. Well, today she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl! July 19th, 2012, at 8:37 am, weighing a whopping 5 lbs 15 oz and 18 inches long. I was privileged enough to be there! I helped her breathe through contractions and held her leg when she pushed and everything! And she did marvelously.
Sadly, things didn't go exactly how she wanted them to. Her bag of waters ruptured on the night of the 15th, but she didn't realize it. On the 18th she went in for a stress test, and they confirmed that she had a slow leak. They admitted her and immediately started her on pitocin (man-made oxytocin, which helps the contractions pick up speed). At 5 am on the 19th they convinced her to get an epidural (she'd done SO well, though, things just weren't picking up at all). And finally, just after 8:30, that dark haired little angel made her way into the world. It was absolutely wonderful and beautiful and I started to tear up a little. :-3
And then I started getting mad. So here comes my vent:
I will never - I repeat, NEVER - give birth in a hospital. I won't do it. End of story. I have a list as to why, a list that I have now witnessed with my own two eyes!
1, They lie. The first doctor she had lied straight to her face several times! She told her they were going to start her on pitocin because, "Your body makes pitocin naturally so we're just going to add some more to get things going." Um, wrong!! Your body does NOT make pitocin naturally! It makes oxytocin naturally! Pitocin is oxytocin on steroids, and it's hell!
Granted, it'd been 48 hours since the amniotic sac ruptured and she wasn't contracting at all; they needed to do something. But the mother didn't want drugs if at all possible, so she asked if there was anything else that could be done first. You know what the doctor said? "No"! Are you kidding me??? Yes, there most certainly is. I was about to interject, but luckily the nurse was the mother's advocate here and she intervened and started listing things that could possibly be tried. Doc didn't look to happy, haha, but mom sure was! They tried each of the other options and, sadly, they had to do the pitocin, but at least that awesome nurse helped us out!
2, Pitocin. This is totally separate from the above, actually. It's pitocin itself I can't stand. Yes, I know that in some cases it's necessary (like in my poor roommate's case), but in most it's not, but it's pretty much become standard. But you know what happens?? They give you pitocin (again, oxytocin on steroids) to make contractions more intense, and the more they give you the more baby's heart rate starts to go down with every contraction. So then they convince you to have an epidural (if you haven't already gotten one) and that slows labor down. So they give you more pitocin. Which, again, makes baby's heart rate go down during contractions 'cause they're so intense. After a few hours of this (12 or more if you're lucky) they tell you it's simply not safe for the baby and they have to do a C-Section. Funny thing: You wouldn't need the C-Section if they hadn't given you pitocin!! Minus the C-Section, that's exactly what happened to this mommy.
3, They ignore your wishes during labor. She made it very clear that she wanted to walk around, move around, and labor the way she wanted to labor. What happened? They confined her on her back in a bed with two internal monitors. The reason being that "Well we just can't monitor the baby's heart rate with you moving around, and we need to have a constant monitor on her." Bull freakin' shit! I've got news for you: women have been giving birth for centuries upon centuries without any sort of monitoring. Monitoring is great, but it doesn't have to be constant! My midwives monitored me about once ever 45 to 60 minutes, and it was external and took all of 1, maybe 2 minutes. My poor roommate was miserable and unable to move! Take it from a mommy who labored for 36 hours without drugs: laying still (especially on your back!) is the WORST possible way to labor!! You're working against gravity, for starters, and moving and rocking is about the only thing that makes that pain a little more bearable!
4, They ignore your wishes after the baby is born!! Mommy wanted them to immediately put baby on her stomach and leave her there until she had finished eating. Did it happen? No. Mommy also wanted them to leave the vernix (that white waxy stuff) on her skin to let it soak in. Did it happen? No. Mommy also wanted to let baby do the breast crawl (you can put a newborn baby in its mother's stomach and it will literally crawl to the breast and start to suckle. It may take up to 20-30 minutes, but it does happen! Babies are smart!) Did it happen? No! They put baby on mom's chest for just a minute, then immediately took her to the other side of the room. There they wiped off all the vernix! Once that was done they put the baby on her tummy again, but before she could even begin to try to find mommy's breast, they said, "She's much too small for this. We're going to give her a little help. Here, put her right on your nipple," and they moved her! Oh I was pissed. I pointed out - as politely as I could at that point - that my daughter was also 2 weeks early and she had no problem finding my breast, she just needed the time to actually try!!
So yeah, those are the top four reasons I WILL NOT have a hospital birth. I will find insurance that covers home births and I will go with that. That is absolutely ridiculous. No way, no how. I don't think so.
But, as I just keep reminding myself, it all turned out wonderfully because they got a beautiful baby girl out of it, and she is healthy and happy. As my boyfriend J so eloquently put it, "Praise the Lord, a new blessing has befallen [them]"!
No comments:
Post a Comment