Birth | Motherworldly

01 May

Karen’s birth story

Pete is Karen’s partner of innumerable years. They live in sin.

I was woken at about 5am on a Friday morning. Karen was delicately whispering in my ear “Pete. Pete. Pete.” I grunted to acknowledge that I was listening. “My waters have just broken.”

I didn’t know what to make of this. I generally don’t know what to make of things when woken at 5am. Especially not back then. In fact, I think that might have only been the second time in my life that I had been woken at 5am (the first such incident being a fire alarm in a hotel in Swindon). Of course, since that day, I have become somewhat more accustomed to being woken at that merciless hour, or other comparably merciless ones.

Big deal, or not a big deal? I couldn’t decide. So we phoned the maternity unit at Heatherwood and asked them what they thought. Their consensus: no rush, come in in a few hours and we’ll see what gives. We went back to bed for a while, then had breakfast. All very leisurely. Nothing that we hadn’t anticipated.

In the hospital, we were quite surprised by the enthusiasm of the midwifes. I suppose we had been expecting weary, jaded, another-baby-whoop-de-doo sourpusses, but ended up finding ourselves surrounded by a small group who seemed even more excited than us! If there had been something remarkable about our case, then I could have understood that, but as far as I could see: so far, so textbook. It’s not a complaint, not in the slightest.

So they sent us back home for a little while. We didn’t know how long we’d be waiting, and I work fairly close to home, so I went into the office.

At about 1pm I got the phone call. A succinct “come home now.” Message received and understood. When I arrived back at the house, I found Karen and a friend (conveniently visiting for lunch that day) calmly drinking tea. Contractions were timed at 5 minutes apart, and though somewhat incapacitating for Karen, they didn’t seem to be killing her. My head briefly filled with the thought “well, fuck me, this is easy!” before I berated myself for being such a dumb, naive, optimistic idiot.

We phoned the hospital and they invited us in straight away. No rush, mind. No rush at all.

We were in the hospital at about 2:30pm. We established HQ and put on a CD. Over the first couple of hours the pain starts to increase, so we start applying countermeasures. We start with the TENS machine which is a real hit, and it gives me a great sense of purpose to be in control of the dials, setting the intensity according to what I perceived to be working for her. She also had some Entonox, which seemed effective, but after about half an hour was leaving her feeling dizzy and spaced-out, so she adjusted by taking smaller gulps until she found her equilibrium.

After that first couple of hours, we cautiously requested an examination. We were worried that she’d be barely dilated, but the midwife told us that it was 7cm. Fantastic, we thought, we’re almost done already! Half an hour later (now at 5pm, for those of you who have lost track) things started to kick into gear. Time for the final showdown. Game on. Or, in birthing parlance, “fetch a midwife, Pete.”

After about another half hour, I could see the top of the baby’s head with each push, but progress was very slow. With each contraction Karen was getting more and more tired, and I could sense that she was starting to despair. She wanted to get the job finished, but lacked the energy to do so. I knew that we couldn’t leave the baby in there and try again tomorrow, so I would have to do something drastic to focus her, Eye Of The Tiger style. So I leaned in and bit off her ear. She didn’t notice. She hasn’t noticed to this day. Strange, that.

Somehow, after about 45 minutes of this stalemate, we found hidden reserves and a little baby slipped out. And then it wasn’t a birthing story any more. More of a “watch Pete cry like a girl” story.

27 Apr

In the red tent

I will be spending this weekend on study days all about processing ideas of birth and motherhood, and in preparation for that [and to avoid doing my tax return], I have been collecting up some bits and pieces to take with me.

The first thing I was asked for was easy: a poem or short piece of prose about birth or parenting. I’ve chosen an extract from Naomi Wolf’s book Misconceptions. The review linked here is rather critical, which makes me interested to re-read the book, as it has been a long time since I looked at it. However there is a page describing the experience of breastfeeding which I found graphically accurate the first time I read it. It’s too long to quote the whole thing here, but it ends: I had never in my life been able to make someone so happy so simply. That gives the impression of an idyllic description, but the entire quote is far from that.

The second thing I have to bring is a favourite short birth story that makes a point, and this I had to think about. I hear lots of birth stories and on reflection I find it hard to pull out a whole story in any kind of coherent detail. I thought I could use my own story, or a fictional birth story that I wrote, but both felt a bit like cheating. Then I remembered reading the story when my son was just over a year old, of journalist Leo Hickman supporting the birth of his third child at home, with the help of the ambulance operator. From the transcript you can tell that the operator is reading instructions from her screen, but she is so calm, clear and encouraging throughout, even when Hickman reports to her that the baby is still inside the sac, and then that there is a large quantity of meconium. She remains cool but not detached, and steers him through an unimaginably alarming experience. If you’re brave, you can listen to the whole call here.

Finally, I need a picture or a small object that holds special meaning for me in relation to birth or parenting. That I am going to have to think about.

I’m looking forward to spending the weekend with my colleagues talking about birth and motherhood in a supportive and safe environment. I think it will be both motivating and educational, and best of all, we are encouraged to bring our knitting!

15 Mar

Book Review: Birth Matters, by Ina May Gaskin

Ina May’s new book is a manifesta setting out the philosophy of natural birth, and therefore nothing that has not been said by wise women (and men) countless times before. The value of this work is its comprehensive, detailed, and clear presentation of the information, such that surely no rational human could disagree. It is The Politics of Breastfeeding for birth, and it is a scientific celebration of what nature has achieved and what women are capable of.

The first chapters set the subject in its global context, and birth stories are scattered through the text to remind the reader that while these are global, political issues, they have personal, individual impacts.

I have learned about the cultural loss of breastfeeding knowledge, and it makes a sad kind of sense to me to be reading the same description of society’s attitude to birth: the loss of skills among health professionals and the consequent loss of positive birth stories. This cycle will be perpetuated and added to, and will spread beyond the US increasingly rapidly, as we lose touch with and confidence in our own bodies.

Ina May Gaskin discusses the role of feminism in driving an ‘escape’ from pregnancy and motherhood, a push towards equality between men and women instead of a celebration of the important differences between us. Why should power be measured only in masculine terms and defined by the choice NOT to do something? Ina May’s positive, empowering feminism offers a far wider range of choices.

It seemed crazy to me to take on the belief that the human female is the only mammal on earth that is a mistake of nature… it’s our minds that sometimes complicate matters for us. (p.23)

She quotes Simone de Beauvoir describing the pregnant women as inciting fear in children and contempt in young people, ensnared: “life’s passive instrument.” De Beauvoir, the great feminist intellectual, writes as though she believes what men have said for centuries about women’s bodies: that we are disgusting, inefficient, and inferior to men (who cannot, normally, grow or feed babies); and seems unaware that historically speaking, medical men who profit from managing birth have had personal and financial interests in telling women that it is a dangerous and painful process, that requires the presence of a qualified doctor. Again the parallels with the unethical practices of formula manufacturers undermining women’s knowledge of and confidence in breastfeeding are clear.

Some of the practices resulting from this basic assumption of women’s inferiority and ignorance are barbaric, and many persist in 21st Century western healthcare. The book describes a bleak outlook for maternity care and motherhood in a world where politics and economics are everything. Yet the short-termism of the idea that labouring women must be cured or rescued from themselves costs far more in terms of money, life, and quality of life. How can this be an acceptable situation?

I was struck by the anecdote in which a couple kissed to raise oxytocin levels and aid relaxation and the progress of labour. It helped me to think about the way I talk to antenatal groups about the role of oxytocin in breastfeeding. And also of the way the idea of sex to bring on labour has been reduced to the role of prostaglandin, when everything about it promotes skin contact, eye contact, and a feeling of well-being. In this, I find yet another example of the big picture being reduced to one male-orientated detail.

I was aware that birth in the US was highly medicalised, but the details and the implications of that, as clearly laid out by Ina May Gaskin, are horrifying and depressing. At the same time, the positive birth stories are affirming, empowering tales, a contrasting picture of the good that is possible when women are informed and respected.

***

To order Birth Matters with a 25% discount, just follow the link and use the discount code KH25 at the checkout.