You probably don’t remember me, but I am Melissa Brewster, wifey to Jed Brewster. About four years ago, we were living down in your neck of the woods- we were the crazies living in our old VW bus with our one year old, Ezra. We met you through church and hung out with you guys a bit before moving back to the Northwest. Anyhow, just some background.

First of all, congratulations!

I know that this post is older, but I just wanted to mention a couple of things…. this will probably be very unorganized, as I’ve got a baby lying on my lap and nursing while I try to type one handed.

Birth is normal- it is not a disease or a medical complication. Women have been giving birth forever. We don’t need someone to deliver our babies, modern medicine has just normalized that. Our bodies respond and know what to do- God made us with amazing bodies that are capable of so much more than most of us realize.

C-sections are a wonderful tool for emergencies…. but terrible for routine births.

Yes, there is definitely a link between c-sections and PPD, as well as more difficulty in bonding with a new child, more pain, exhaustion, you name it.

I don’t know what HMO you have, but if you haven’t found a path or a provider yet, there may still be options.

As a mother of three, and a woman who has experienced both home birth and c-section birth, I cannot encourage you enough to be firm in what you want. Natural birth is a beautiful thing- the most amazing experience I’ve ever had (and the reason that I am pursuing midwifery)….

…but beyond that, this is Emily’s body we’re talking about… she has the right to say what will and will not be done to it. In every other aspect of our lives, we as women are taught to protect our bodies…But in the medical realm, we are expected to just sit nicely and allow a doctor to control one of the most intimate times in our lives! It’s absurd!

Anyhow, enough of my rambling, here are a couple of links:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=763364

http://www.socalbirth.org/index.htm

http://southcoastmidwifery.com/

Oh, and I think that a doula would probably be a great idea.

Blessings on your journey and birth!

-mel

The Mongolian medical system is about 20 years behind America and it’s terrible. My first son’s hospital birth was a disaster and I won’t go into detail here. The home births were not without their ups and downs but God was definitely in control.

I wish you and your wife luck as you make sense of all the info out there. Home birth or hospital, I wish you all the best!

Emily and I have read through all these and are trying to take all the advice everyone’s given. It has all been really helpful.

And if anyone else is still thinking about these issues (not yet pregnant or really early on), I do encourage you to search out your community for Bradley Method instructors (hit up google or the bradley databases). It’s been really helpful, and it helps put all these stories, advice, etc into a context – at least it does for me.

I don’t normally read your blog (don’t have time to even check my emails) but I do sometimes read where Martin’s commented and follow links. Martin and I don’t see each other very much and so at least that way I can see what he’s been thinking about lately.

Just a couple of things, and of course ditto if you guys are interested in calling us anytime about the whole thing. I definitely talked things over a lot with people during both pregnancies. I’m an anal retentive researcher and try to always explore all possible options thoroughly, bounce ideas off others, etc., so I sorta know where you’re coming from. We definitely spent many, many an hour talking about the very same issues I see you and others talking about here.

(Martin meant sit-ups re: my stomach, btw, not pull-ups. But he’s very underslept. And unfortunately he’s right that most women don’t seem to get their previously flat stomachs back post-C-section, but I’ve learned to live with my little “kangaroo pouch.” Looks like I’ve been hemmed. I coach gymnastics 6 days a week and so I’m resolved that I’m not getting my flat stomach back. Actually a woman I work with who looks like a tall, skinny model from a magazine had a C-secion with her first and you’d never know it. Don’t you love people like that, Emily? Anyway, all that stuff’s small potatoes in the end, but in our society I imagine it’s a hard pill for most women to swallow…)

On the Bradley method, I cannot help myself from saying: Please don’t follow the diet. (Unless they’ve changed it.) All those eggs everyday and LIVER? Disgusting. I refused to follow it. I gained 60 pounds with each kid (mostly water what with late August babies and the edema) which I eventually lost, but if I’d followed the Bradley diet I’d have been as big as the Goodyear Blimp. Maybe bigger. And with a heart condition too. Take most of the things they say with a grain of salt…exercise common sense and do your research to keep your head.

What Bradley’s good for is four things, IMO. (1) Emphasis on having a good and healthy diet (not necessarily THEIRS though). Proper nutrition + exercise. Stretching! (2) Emphasis on healthy distrust of the medical establishment, keeping an open mind to reasonable alternatives. (3) MOST importantly, and the foundation of Bradley, those RELAXATIONS! DO DO DO practice them. They saved me in my first labor, which was long and painful and lasted 40 hours. Martin helped me to prepare by doing these relaxations at home in the evenings and when the time came I could more easily switch into this mode when the contractions came. Even if you wind up in the surgery room or with any kind of pain in life in the future, the practice will not have been a waste of time, I assure you. (4) Having a childbirth coach or partner, preferably a husband. Involving husbands in the pregnancy and childbirth is so important. People our age take this for granted these days I think, but I cannot imagine my own dad being as supportive of my mom as Martin was of me throughout my pregnancies, etc. I don’t know how in the world women go through labor and delivery alone, without a friend to help them.

On the HMO/Dr. front, we feel your pain. I researched many practices ahead of time before I decided. (The second time around the choice was obvious because she was my second-choice the first time around.) I would think that in the area you live in, though, you’d be able to find a good CNM (nurse midwife) who can work with you and who your HMO will cover. Even ours covered my solo midwife with baby #2. We had no fancy plan, I assure you. As has been suggested, looking at the hospital might be an option, but I know for myself that having a trusted nurse (or dr.) during my pregnancy, labor, and delivery was more important than the hospital itself. With baby #2 I had both a good midwife and a good hospital. My midwife even assisted the dr. in the surgery (heck, I’ve got no doubt she could’ve performed the surgery herself if allowed by law). In your area the hospitals are probably numerous and with good resources available anyway.

If you end up in a less than desirable situation with your dr./midwife, just try to have a birth plan and communicate your wishes as clearly as you can, and remember that ultimately the decisions are yours (well, mostly Emily’s) to make. While in labor with #1 our horrendous dr. yelled at me while I was in labor, and this only increased our mistrust of him. He tried to bully, belittle, and berate me. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know who he was dealing with. We suspected he might’ve had a golf game in the AM or something. It was about as bad as it could get, but as he probably regularly intimidates women into having abdominal surgery cuz he doesn’t want to wait around while they’re in labor, he performed a pretty darn good C-section. Silver lining was he had lots of practice. Later on another doc in that practice who visited me in the hospital walked in on me without knocking and I was barely clothed, and then laughed at me when I told him I was in pain and wanted another day in the hospital. You’re right to want to choose carefully, as you cannot assume the dr. or midwife you like will be the one on-call when you go to the hospital, even if they promise you.

And cynically speaking, even if you find a great midwife, like mine, remember you might still have differences. I recommend mine enthusiastically, but I differ with her vociferously over some diet issues. I agreed to go on a low-carb diet with baby #2 so I might have a chance at a smaller baby, but since it was the head (scull) causing all the troubles I failed to see how the low carb diet would help all that much. Also, I am small, apparently, therefore a true cephalopelvic disproportion scenario. As it turned out I guess I was right about the diet, but I wanted to give it a chance just in case. Also she advocates this flaky hypnotherapy stuff and I purchased a CD (didn’t go in for the whole course) and while listening Martin and I laughed so hard we hurt. As if the rainbow visualization crapola wasn’t funny enough, it sounded like it was narrated by the stereotypical “Pat the biker dyke.” Ashame I don’t know where that CD is or I’d send it to you for a good laugh. It was bizarre. The bottom line is you should feel comfortable with her/him and basically trust the advice they’re giving you is well-researched, reasonable, and in YOUR best interest (not theirs).

Please let us know how it goes. Pray to the Most Holy Mother of God for help in this. She never fails in pleading on our behalf to her Son!