It is SO HARD to be a doula!
You have to carve this little ledge in between telling your families that their care provider is just straight out lying to them, and helping them to ask the right questions so that they can discover that for themselves. And sometimes, when they don't ask the right questions, you get to watch their care provider get what they want.
Which is not (most of the time) what this family has been thinking about for nine months. It just really sucks to see a strong determined family get the "dead baby" card pulled on them. Because really, how can you argue against that?
And the "infection" card is great too.
I am really just to cynical to ever go to a hospital birth, but I do it anyway. And I really try to be calm and present and avert my eyes from the care provider so that I seem meek and mild. But really I am shooting her the evil eye and praying for the next CNM to come on call.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Can I punch the doctor in the face, or would that just be rude?
I just watched "A Baby Story", which I am actually not allowed to watch for a couple of reasons. First is that they are always seeming to be so shocked when the baby is born healthy despite everything they try to do the mother and second is everything they to do the mother (with her permission/submission).
So sixth time mom, VBACing after triplets (YAY!) goes into labor spontaneously and heads to the hospital quickly to have an epi (quote "I'm brave...but not THAT brave"). On the way to the car, contractions come quickly. I can hear that baby is really going to come quickly. Get into the car, water breaks (police escort is found...running red lights and speeding through intersections) and the baby starts to come. She wants to push. Dad makes witty comments about his clean upholstery which in any other circumstance would not go over well. He did a fantastic job staying calm, driving and filming at the same time.
They make it to the hospital. So the dad enters (still filming) and they have managed to:
1. Get the mom flat on her back with her feet in the air
2. Chin to chest, hold your legs
3. Push...push...push
4. HOLD YOUR BREATH AND PUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..you need to push!!!!!!!
6. There is mec, get the NA
7. Okay, push!
Whew. Baby born. Suction at the perineum for mec. Clamp the cord immediately. Baby taken.
"Dad, you get the hold the baby first."
So he brings the baby to the covered mother, so she can view her covered baby, and they don't touch. And they don't touch. And they don't touch.
Next day, mother is interviewed, but no baby to be found...(and dad talks about his driving)and then I turned off of TV.
So here are my thoughts:
I understand that she felt like she had time to get to the hospital. I get that. Labor was fast and furious. Water breaks, and baby is coming. Why then, did the system fail her so completely? She never needed help with pushing. Her baby was practically born in the car, so why in the world did they feel the need to scream at her to push? I wonder why people can't NOT get caught up in a baby's fast entrance into the world.
What this mother needed was someone to help her slow down. She needed to be upright or on her side or however she wanted to be. What she didn't need was to go even faster! She had a baby who was probably just as stunned at how things were coming as she was. Mec makes sense. She should have been given her baby. They should have allowed her that time to slow her thoughts down with her baby in her arms (cord intact of course) and really, they should have just left her alone.
One of the gajillion things wrong with birthing babies in the hospital is that instead of doing nothing, they feel the need to do ten things more then what actually needs to be done. This mother probably views this birth as a crazy frantic rollercoaster, which is was. She was never given the option of someone not freaking out. And she never got her baby after she worked so quickly to meet him.
So why do we seperate mothers from their babies?
It's stupid.
So sixth time mom, VBACing after triplets (YAY!) goes into labor spontaneously and heads to the hospital quickly to have an epi (quote "I'm brave...but not THAT brave"). On the way to the car, contractions come quickly. I can hear that baby is really going to come quickly. Get into the car, water breaks (police escort is found...running red lights and speeding through intersections) and the baby starts to come. She wants to push. Dad makes witty comments about his clean upholstery which in any other circumstance would not go over well. He did a fantastic job staying calm, driving and filming at the same time.
They make it to the hospital. So the dad enters (still filming) and they have managed to:
1. Get the mom flat on her back with her feet in the air
2. Chin to chest, hold your legs
3. Push...push...push
4. HOLD YOUR BREATH AND PUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..you need to push!!!!!!!
6. There is mec, get the NA
7. Okay, push!
Whew. Baby born. Suction at the perineum for mec. Clamp the cord immediately. Baby taken.
"Dad, you get the hold the baby first."
So he brings the baby to the covered mother, so she can view her covered baby, and they don't touch. And they don't touch. And they don't touch.
Next day, mother is interviewed, but no baby to be found...(and dad talks about his driving)and then I turned off of TV.
So here are my thoughts:
I understand that she felt like she had time to get to the hospital. I get that. Labor was fast and furious. Water breaks, and baby is coming. Why then, did the system fail her so completely? She never needed help with pushing. Her baby was practically born in the car, so why in the world did they feel the need to scream at her to push? I wonder why people can't NOT get caught up in a baby's fast entrance into the world.
What this mother needed was someone to help her slow down. She needed to be upright or on her side or however she wanted to be. What she didn't need was to go even faster! She had a baby who was probably just as stunned at how things were coming as she was. Mec makes sense. She should have been given her baby. They should have allowed her that time to slow her thoughts down with her baby in her arms (cord intact of course) and really, they should have just left her alone.
One of the gajillion things wrong with birthing babies in the hospital is that instead of doing nothing, they feel the need to do ten things more then what actually needs to be done. This mother probably views this birth as a crazy frantic rollercoaster, which is was. She was never given the option of someone not freaking out. And she never got her baby after she worked so quickly to meet him.
So why do we seperate mothers from their babies?
It's stupid.
The birth "plan"
I was at a Childbirth Collective meeting last night and we were talking about Choices and Planning for your birth. One thing that was talked about was the way to phrase what you are trying to say so that you are more likely to get what you want.
So for instance, instead of saying:
"Do not break my bag of waters", you would say "I would like my bag of waters to remain intact unless medically necessary".
The trouble is (and very few of us really have a true understanding of this) that they ~your care providers~are not on your side. It is so easy to find a way to have something be medically necessary. If you don't have a full understand of the workings of a hospital (and if you did you would birth at home) then you are already lost in a sea of hospital policy.
It can be really hard to help someone write a birthplan. And for the record, I do call it a plan. You plan a vacation. You don't preference trip to Italy. You plan one. Sure it can change. Plan isn't a bad word. There is nothing wrong with planning. I love to plan things. But I digress...
Doula's know that care providers pull the "dead baby card" all of the time. I personally see it over and over. I am very blessed to have families that birth in the hospital know more then the average person when it comes to birth, but even then, you can only talk so much about it. The mother/family has to actually experience it, in order to grasp how it bad it can be. (This is not to say that I haven't had great hospital birth experiences)
Okay...I am too worked up.
So for instance, instead of saying:
"Do not break my bag of waters", you would say "I would like my bag of waters to remain intact unless medically necessary".
The trouble is (and very few of us really have a true understanding of this) that they ~your care providers~are not on your side. It is so easy to find a way to have something be medically necessary. If you don't have a full understand of the workings of a hospital (and if you did you would birth at home) then you are already lost in a sea of hospital policy.
It can be really hard to help someone write a birthplan. And for the record, I do call it a plan. You plan a vacation. You don't preference trip to Italy. You plan one. Sure it can change. Plan isn't a bad word. There is nothing wrong with planning. I love to plan things. But I digress...
Doula's know that care providers pull the "dead baby card" all of the time. I personally see it over and over. I am very blessed to have families that birth in the hospital know more then the average person when it comes to birth, but even then, you can only talk so much about it. The mother/family has to actually experience it, in order to grasp how it bad it can be. (This is not to say that I haven't had great hospital birth experiences)
Okay...I am too worked up.
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