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.