I Take It Back

Alright, I take it back:  f*ck you, TLC.
Now I'm watching one certain A Baby Story where a well-meaning first time mother wants a natural birth after a loss at about three months.
She starts out laboring fine.  She doesn't progress terribly well - from 6 cm to 6.5cm over a decent spell of time.  Midwife breaks her water - finds it has meconium in it, so warns the nice momma about how the baby needs to be checked right away after it comes out to make sure it hasn't breathed it's own poo into it's lungs.  She checks her progress 4 more times in the span of a 30 minute show, with the momma wincing horribly each time.  Midwife notes that momma is tired and should probably have an epidural at this point, to which the momma agrees, and then the midwife is featured going off to the nurse saying, "She got it.  She's feeling much more comfortable... as always."  (Hey moms-to-be!  Your efforts towards an unmedicated birth are noble, but stupid!  Look how comfortable this woman is now that she's had the needle stuck in her spine!)  Midwife checks the momma's progress again as she remains stuck in the bed, unable to move because of all the monitors, and says that the baby is "molding" - meaning it's trying to come down with each contraction, but it's starting to smush the cervix in a way that suggests it's head is just too big to get out.  (Wow, I molded too... my cervix had a little lip that was in the baby's way.  Did they send me for a caesarian?  No, they had me stand up and rock back and forth so the baby's head rubbed that obstruction down to nothing.) The midwife tells her it's time to really consider having the baby surgically removed, and the mother breaks down.  She doesn't want to be cut, she doesn't want a scar, she doesn't want more anesthesia, she doesn't want both herself and her baby to have to recover during the first few days of their relationship.

Bring in the doctor.  Doctor comes in and checks her progress - AGAIN, agk! - and says that the baby is actually further down than that (c-u-next-tuesday of a) midwife had described, and "why don't you try a few trial pushes?"  She does once, or twice... then the doctor says since momma is so tired, why don't they use forceps to pull the baby out?  Momma barely whispers, desperate, "please... please don't do that unless it's absolutely necessary," and the doctor says, "we'll see."  Baby begins to crown and you see some blood down at momma's business end.  Momma looks down through a push and says, in a panicked whisper, "are you going to cut me?!?"  Doctor looks up.  She continues, "please, just let me tear.  Don't. Cut. Me."  Again, the doctor replies, vaguely, almost smugly, "...we'll see." 

 She pushes one last time and the baby is born - a beautiful pink little girl, 7 lbs 2 oz.  Her head is a little long and Mayan-looking from being in the birth canal so long, but otherwise she is a beautiful perfect little thing, with fluffy, gorgeous brown hair.

I don't know if this was supposed to be a sort of "buyer beware" episode, or just one of those "look at alllll the things that can go wrong", but they've taken that nice vibe I wrote about yesterday and just murdered it.

Every intervention puts you further downhill from your goal of a natural birth. 

Bravo, TLC!

When I was pregnant with the E-unit, I watched a lot of "A Baby Story" and would record bits of the show mostly, after reading some Ina May Gaskin, to show my dear husband exactly how I did NOT want to deliver our baby.  I didn't want the legs-up-in-the-air, brutal nurse yelling at me to push, squirt-poop-pow-baby sort of delivery that was most often shown.  Occasionally I'd see a lady sitting in her bathtub in a sports bra concentrate, give a moan, and then scoop a little wrinkly raisin baby out of the water; that's what I wanted. 

(fast forward to July 22nd, 2008 and I did enjoy the bathtub and sports bra situation for a good 90 minutes, but finally did end up with a less-ideal birth, albeit naturally and overall happily because I did not blow out my bottom.)

Now we're no longer babysitting the E-mac in the mornings but I enjoy my up-at-6:30am routine way too much to give it up.  After BBC World News is over there's not much to watch if you're not a fan of Grahame Norton (I am not), so I usually flip over to TLC for some Bringing Home Baby and Baby Story fun.  (And it IS good fun, especially with nearly three years separating yourself from the whole experience of either bringing home a baby or your baby story!) 

Lo and behold, in two weeks I've noticed a slight change in the births and mothers shown on these shows. 

Yesterday I saw a overweight black woman refuse an epidural and then not only desire to, but be ALLOWED to, deliver her high-risk twins vaginally.  VAGINALLY.      TWINS.  In a HOSPITAL.  Hell, in an operating room, to be precise.  (They weren't taking any chances.  A hospital not taking any chances usually results in the mom being induced and the twins coming via C-section.)  It was pretty brutal - her legs were strapped up to stadium-style uprights at the end of her gurney, meaning she was flat on her back, but she delivered almost 11 pounds of baby girl with barely any complaint.  She was a GODDESSS.  What's more, the hospital was pretty fab for allowing her to do that.  Then?  She went home and breast fed them.  Refused (but not irrationally - they were doing fine on breast only) to supplement.  I don't know exactly how to portray how amazing this seemed to me. 

Then today a lady delivered twins via c-section and breast fed them exclusively on Bringing Home Baby.  They were supplementing occasionally but she was uncomfortable with the idea, and what did they do?  BROUGHT IN A LACTATION CONSULTANT.  Did she tell them to give up, she was too exhausted to have a good supply and might be starving her babies?  Nope, she told her to pump at least 20 minutes a day, especially whenever the babies are taking bottles... and then the consultant zoomed into her own bubble and addressed the viewers directly, giving three tips for increasing breast milk production and to make feeding easier. 

HOLY SHIT!  Breast feeding is cool again?!? 

I am just so impressed.  It's not much.  There could be a lot less "drama" before commercials, less stress on "how wrong things can go," and much much more featuring of births with midwives, but still... it's a start.  Any baby steps towards helping remove the subconscious culture of fear and danger that surrounds birth in the US would be highly welcome.   I'm very very impressed, TLC.