mothering madness

I knew I should have burned that Mothering magazine. But no, I had to leave it in the bathroom so that one hapless afternoon crap I would come across bullshit like this:

So, this guy is writing an article in the pregnancy issue about how he and his wife decided to birth their baby at home, alone, unassisted. Okay, fine. I can jive with that. But what got me was the asshole's attitude. Just get a load of this somewhat lengthy passage (emphasis added):

Looking back, I can only imagine what our experience might have been like in more traditional conditions. A transverse position would have qualified us for "high risk" and entered us in the inevitable cascade of interventions, from epidurals and fetal heart monitors to Pitocin and, most likely, a cesarean section.

A C-section alone would have significantly increased the risk of Julieta's death. Each of the other interventions, predicated on the assumption of jeopardy that we now know was, for us, simply not there, would have introduced a new danger to mother and baby. Overall the odds of having a safe, rewarding experience in the hospital were hugely stacked against us.

Despite the fact that our birth was --as we had all along assured everyone that it would be -- safe, expeditious, and wholly absent of any complications, there were still friends and family who told us "You were lucky." "Luck," we would respond, "had nothing to do with it." For us, having our baby at home was no bold, daring statement. It was simply the most normal, natural, safe environment for us to give birth in. Every aspect of our homebirth was an educated intentional decision based on our knowledge and understanding of the human body. Our planning was a conscious act of intelligently enhancing the safety of our birth by aligning our birth plan with the birthing expectations of Julieta's body. Giving birth together at home, without any interventions, gave my wife's body its full, unhindered capacity to access all the hormones that would facilitate a safe & healthy birth. Feeling relaxed and safe provided her pelvic bones and tissues a degree of flexibility incomparable to that possible under any other conditions. The lighting, sounds, and temperature of the house were all carefully orchestrated to trigger her body's evolutionary mechanisms for a quick and productive labor.

Oh, wow. You're one real impressive dude. What a smug, self-satisfied mother-fucker! Yeah, dude -you guys really did everything right, didn't you? -And it is all because of your careful, intelligent planning that your wife avoided a c-section, right? -Oh, you tell yourself that.

Wait - I forget -didn't women used to die in fucking childbirth, asshole? -at home? -unassisted? What I object to isn't that you had an unassisted homebirth. Good for you. How wonderful for you! Maybe next time I'll try that myself. What I object to is the fact that you reject the role of LUCK in your experience. I object to the fact that you seem to think you're God or something, making everything work out simply by having the right fucking lighting & temperature?! -Give me a fucking break!

And enough with the bad-talking Cesarean sections, ok? --Granted, they suck. Big time. I have a major love-hate relationship with mine. Because the truth is, as much as you want to avoid them, sometimes, believe it or not, c-sections SAVE LIVES. I cannot help but believe that I was a certain candidate for maternal death (and probably infant as well) had the physicians not intervened when they did.

What I really want to ask this guy is this: when would you have gone to the hospital if you weren't so "lucky" (I know, I know, you don't believe in luck -but those of us who were unlucky sure do)? -after 18 hours? -24 hours? -on day 2? -or day 3? -How long would you have waited? -Would you have waited until her eyes were rolling back in her head like mine were from a lack of real food and real sleep? - Would you have been able to accept at that last terrible instant that maybe your perfect planning didn't really pan out? -that all the relaxation techniques in the book weren't going to make up for the fact that your baby was posterior and you're wife just wasn't going to dilate in time? -Because I don't really get that you would be able to cope from the condescending, self-assured tone of your stupid fucking Mothering article.

And my evil twin who is always whispering mean thoughts in my ear says: "Maybe next time he won't be so lucky, or I should say "she" (because let's face it: this "giving birth together" stuff just makes us both want to throw up). Maybe next time his wife will have a real tough go of it and he will have to swallow all these proud and awful words. Maybe he'll write a retraction and admit that he was wrong, that luck really does have a little something to do with it. " But probably not.