i’m up a little late for a pregnant lady. i’ve been agonizing over a birth plan. well, not so much a “plan” as a “please don’t do these certain things to me” list. i never wrote one with henry. i thought to myself “i really trust these people, they won’t do anything to hurt me.” interesting thought. though i’m sure my midwife and the OB resident weren’t out to make the next four months of my life rather hellish, that’s how it turned out.
you might wonder what happened. and i might wonder if it’s the sort of thing you can write about on a blog. and i might do it anyway. let’s just say that i had a fourth degree tear, followed by a fourth degree repair without any sort of anesthesia. YOWCH. i still have nightmares that include a masked OB resident at the foot of my bed. and, of course, it didn’t heal properly and involved several instances of silver nitrate and i think i’ll spare you those details.
so, tell me. any of you have birth “plans” that made any sort of difference? or am i riding a tidal wave of managed care that won’t listen to me, no matter how politely i let them know that i really don’t like the feeling of a needle working its way through my skin?
Yowza. I think another one of my eggs just dried up and died in fright. Although I don’t have any experience with birth plans, I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking for what you want and standing up for basic human rights. Like anesthetic.
yes- ask for an epidural and fall asleep. no pain. or you could just do it my way and be strapped to a little table in the OR for an hour:) Actually I’ll take my stomach incision over your painful tear any day, ouch. I hope that doesn’t happen to you again. And I need to talk to you. I’ll call. soon.
I think as long as your birth plan is no more than a page and outlines what you hope to happen (like having the baby on your chest immediately after birth and waiting for necessary treatments) and what you want to avoid (epidural, episiotomy, labor inducing drugs…or whatever), they will pay attention to it.
My birth plan was short and helped me to talk to my provider about the sort of birth experience I wanted. I think most everyone’s eyes glaze over once the birth plan tries to micromanage everything, or includes scented candles, placenta rituals, etc.
There are so many things about labor that you can’t control. I think it’s fine to have opinions about the things you can (always assuming that mom and baby are safe).
Marcia says major tears are more common in water births, but I can’t remember why. I get to have some minor renovations since my stitches dissolved too soon and nothing healed as expected. I’d be happy to talk to you about it, don’t have your number though. Love you.