[blparent] Keeping birthing plan flexible

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

You are absolutely correct. Medicine and science have progressed so
much, and if some type of medical intervention can assist in a healthy
and safe delivery, then there's nothing wrong in doing so.

Personally, I have a diagnosed high tolerance for pain, and though birth
and delivery can be extremely painful, I have experienced pain that
doctors said would have made regular people pass out, and in conjunction
with this, I have a very high tolerance for drugs- meaning I typically
need to over-dose for most drugs to work including narcotics, and I'm
not a very big person. I rarely take even Tylenol and drugs like this
just because of this reason, This is not a guarantee that I won't
require, or want, drugs of some sort during delivery, but short of my
doctors recommending it for some reason, at this point I do not plan on
using drugs for many reasons, but this does not mean I won't assess the
situation once in it, or that I will be disappointed if things change.

Obviously a C-section requires medication. My comment about using drugs
was meant for those who didn't necessarily need them but took advantage
just the same, which again is not wrong. It's a personal choice with no
right or wrong answer.

No one should be so inflexible that they end up feeling like a "failure"
when their plan does not work out the way they want. A healthy labor and
birth are the end goal no matter how you get there.

That I make plans and share them does not mean I am inflexible or
against considering other options, which most mothers will have to
consider when going into labor. No one can ever be fully prepared for
what will happen once in labor.

As long as my baby is healthy, I will be happy, and even if they are not
100% healthy, I will still be happy to have my baby. My family has been
through so much that I know the cost of being inflexible, and how
beneficial it is to truly have no expectations that can set you up for
disappointment.

No parent should ever feel guilty or disappointed because labor didn't
go as planned, or that they took a birthing route others did not choose.
It's a personal decision that no one can judge if not directly involved
in the situation.  As women, mothers and parents in general, we should
support and not make snap judgments when people do not follow a plan
similar to our own, and we certainly shouldn't set each other up, or
ourselves, for failure and disappointment in any sense.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:37:02 -0600
From: "Jo Elizabeth Pinto" <jopinto at msn.com>
To: "Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Making decisions with baby in general (keeping
	flexible)
Message-ID: <SNT116-DS15EC608E687053247295ECAC3C0 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original

I think we would all agree that by far the most important outcome every 
single one of us is, or was, looking for in pregnancy was the birth of a

healthy baby, period.  All natural, drug free, no interventions, those
are 
all great goals, if they can happen.  But please, please don't get
yourself 
so set on those goals that you end up disappointed, or feeling like you 
failed, if they don't come to pass.

I wanted a drug free labor with my baby, and had one till about seven or

eight centimeters, when I was so exhausted from having been up for about

thirty-six hours straight that I knew I needed some relief from the pain
if 
I was going to have the strength and stamina to push the baby out.  I
was 
given a mild pain reliever through my IV line, and that was enough to
get me 
successfully to the pushing stage.  But the baby had turned her head in
the 
birth canal by then, sort of looking back the way she had come, and she 
wouldn't budge.  After over an hour of pushing, she hadn't moved an
inch, 
and her heartbeat began to drop.  The doctor recommended that I have an 
emergency C-section.  Twenty minutes later--that was amazing enough to
me, 
but the nurses said they could have gotten the baby out in less than
five 
minutes if they had to--Sarah was born.  The doctor said that with the
way 
her head was wedged, I could have pushed from then untill the end of
time, 
and she never would have gotten out.  He said a hundred years ago, they 
would have asked the baby's father to choose which one of us to save,
since 
they couldn't sew a woman up after a C-section before she bled to death,
and 
the only other option would have been to take the baby out a piece at a 
time.

I guess what I'm saying is, looking back, I didn't get my natural
delivery, 
I didn't get to nurse exclusively the way I wanted to, but I got a
healthy 
baby.  That's what really matters.  There's a lot of talk these days
about 
the overuse of medical interventions, the high number of C-sections we
have 
in this country, the low number of women who choose to nurse, and on and
on. 
I'm personally glad we have the medical interventions.  At the end of
the 
Civil War, more babies were delivered naturally, but one in three women 
eventually died in childbirth, or shortly after due to infections.  One
in 
three.  And almost every family lost at least one baby, even into the
next 
century.  My dad's mother lost three, and my mom's mother lost one, and 
these were in the thirties and forties.

So if your birth goes according to plan and without a hitch, that's
awesome. 
What a great experience!  But if it turns out that you need drugs, or 
surgery, or baby formula, or whatever else is available to the medical 
profession, don't beat yourself up.  If you get a healthy baby out of
the 
deal, that's what you were after in the first place.  And if, God
forbid, 
you don't get a healthy baby out of the deal, then thankfully, there are

other medical interventions that will prove helpful.

Jo Elizabeth