Ya-Ya Crunchy in This One Way

Very rarely have I ever been accused of being crunchy. Granola. Ya-ya. You know what I mean. And really, I still don’t consider myself to be those things, even in this one thing. But it seems everyone in the world thinks I am, so I guess I should tell you why I don’t think I am.

Confused?

Let’s start at the beginning. (cue harp riffs that signal going back in time.)

While I was growing up, mom would always include in retellings of my birth how she did it with no medicine. Honestly, when I was 12, I thought she was CRAZY. Actually, to be completely honest, I thought that was crazy until….oh… about six months ago.

I mean, why? WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? Also, ouch! And, WHY??!

But then this strange thing happened. A little baby started growing inside me, and I started thinking about this for real. For. REAL.

See, there are all these things involved with labor and delivery that you never think about until you have to. Things like vacuum extractors and episiotomies and TEARS (No, no. Not like crying. Think of tearing paper. Yep. Now you get it.). Things like Pitocin and spinal taps and enemas.

If you’ve never thought of these things, I don’t recommend you Google them right now. Let me spare you a lot of discomfort and tell you this: these things aren’t pleasant.

But they got me thinking. It seems like all these really unpleasant things lead to each other. When you can’t feel what you’re doing, you tear. When you can’t feel what you’re doing, you need an episiotomy to help the baby out. When you can’t feel what you’re doing, your baby has to be sucked out of you with a vacuum. (I am NOT lying, people. Vacuum.)

For me, it comes down to an issue of control. Do I want to basically hand over control of the birth of my baby to a doctor I don’t know because I’m completely numb from the waist down? Because that’s essentially what you’re signing up for when you get an epidural. Some people are fine with that. And that’s fine. But I’m not.

When you look at the history of childbirth over the last few decades, it’s even more disturbing. Not long ago, when a mother went into labor, the doctor would knock her out, and she’d wake up with a baby. Shortly after that, we started having the ability to just numb half the mother’s body, therefore rendering her less useful in the actual delivery of the baby, and requiring the need for all these other lovely methods of extraction (forceps, vaccum, etc.).

Also, those meds? They’re pretty expensive. And, oh!, you need a surgical incision now to help the baby out? More money. And, whoops!, guess we need to break out the vacuum extractor! That ain’t cheap! Good thing your insurance is paying for it!

(I know I’m bordering on conspiracy theory here, so I’ll stop, but we all know hospitals are businesses, okay?)

So, yeah. I’ve become a crazy person. At least that’s how I feel when I tell most people I’m planning on and hoping to have a ‘natural’ delivery – that is, a medication-free delivery. Seriously, I’ve never had people look at me in such a weird way in my life than when they find this out. (It’s sort of like the time mom and I tried a different at-home highlighting method and my hair briefly had a blonde cheetah pattern. Lesson: don’t use the plastic wide-tooth brush.)

But I don’t feel like natural childbirth is the crunchy ya-ya option, I really don’t. I feel like that’s the way babies are supposed to be born. It’s LITERALLY the traditional way things are done.

For women who think they can’t do it, I’d like to say: um, yes, you can. Know how I know? Because there were somewhere between 4,000 and 2-bajillion years of human existence before we invented drugs. And somehow, MIRACULOUSLY, ladies were having babies. Weird.

(cue clanging cymbal sound of me dropping the sarcasm)

Seriously, ladies. Read a little bit about how our bodies are made to produce children, grow children, sustain children, and deliver children. There are so many beautiful, wondrous, insane, minute things that happen that are little signatures of our Creator. How can you believe you weren’t made for this?

I know. I’ve heard the argument that ‘God blessed us to be able to invent drugs so we wouldn’t have to feel all that pain anymore, and we should use His gift to us.” And I buy that. For people who are having heart surgery. Or brain surgery. Or…other things humans haven’t been doing since the beginning of time.

Whoa. That’s a big thought. Childbirth the exact same way Eve did it. The first mother.

I’ll end by telling you I don’t look down on you if you have an epidural during your labor and delivery. I really don’t. I totally get that it’s a really personal decision, made for the kind of woman you are and the safety of your baby and what you think is best for everyone. Please don’t think this blog entry is about me ‘judging’ anyone else.

Because I could very well end up having an epidural. I could be in labor for 20 hours and eventually, after all that work, all these words I just typed out might mean about as much as those dozen or so Cheerios left in the bottom of the box that I won’t eat because it’s not a whole bowl of cereal.

All I’m saying is that when I tell someone I’m planning on and hoping for a med-free childbirth, and they think I’m ya-ya, I think that’s weird.

But if it’s not, I’m okay with being ya-ya. On this one issue.