Karen Angstadt & A Labor Of Love

Monday myself, and Gina “The Feminist Breeder” are going to be on A Labor of Love with Karen Angstadt.
The topic of the show for the afternoon is “Why A Healthy Baby Isn’t All That Matters” and we will have not only Karen’s awesome input, but the stories of Gina with her unnecesarean and VBAC which she had to fight for, but my perspective of as a mother who has had one unnecessary c-section, and one medically necessary one.  I think it is going to be a great hour!
So join us Monday February 15th at 1:00pm EST to chat!

But there is a reason why this is something that is important to me. Most of you know my history, or birth stories of my two boys, and if you do not I invite you to click on births above in the navigation bar and take a couple minutes to read. I think it may give you a better understanding of why this subject is so important to me.  And just on a side note, I have been seeing more and more posts around blogs, the internet, and support forums on the internet. I am not sure if it is more women actually having bad experiences, but I can tell there is a slow movement of better understanding for women who have had negative birth experiences.

But in reality, our society today is so quick to discount the feelings of women and their birth experiences. I learned that first hand after my oldest was born and I realized months after the fact that something was just not right about his birth. When I started to read more, learn more, and understand today’s Obstetric model of care, it all clicked.   I had been put through the “cascade” and when my OB was done for the day, so was my chance at laboring. Nothing more, nothing less.
Had I learned more, I am sure I would have ran screaming from that practice much earlier, but I was young, and only semi-educated, and most of the education came from those books like “What to Expect when Expecting” so you can see where that is going… Another reason I think that book is nothing more than paper to start my fire place with.

But the flip side to me, which gave me an amazing understanding, and gave me up opposite side of the discussion was my youngest son needing to be born by cesarean after over 26 hours of labor.  It was a long labor, it started on a day I had very little sleep from the night before, I had a ton of things I needed to get done that day for an ICAN baby fair, and of course, my luck, and my little stubborn child, he decided he wanted to bust a move in the middle of things!  I shouldn’t have expected any different from him though.

Benjamin got stuck.
It was a scary experience, but I was lucky enough to have a midwife who noticed this, and knew something was not right. My mothers intuition kicked in even before she discussed his positioning with me, and at that moment we decided because of both my own body’s reaction to what was taking place, and what Ben was doing that a second cesarean section was necessary. Which was fine with me. Without that surgery, my son would not be here, and I very well may not either.

While it was disappointing for all the hard work I had put into a VBAC, it was less upsetting than my first, or should I say it was upsetting in a different way since what took place was nothing short of my own bodies fault.

Many women do not understand birth trauma, and do not understand why a cesarean is such a big deal for some women. And unless you have been there yourself, not meaning you have simply had a cesarean, but have been though the hard time, the emotions, the lack of bonding with your child, the hate for your birth, or dealt with PTSD, then you can’t throw out the “healthy baby” card. It simply is nothing more than an insult.

Which is why I have already chosen to plan a HBA2C for my next child. If you do not know what HBA2C means, it stands for Home Birth After 2 Cesareans. With the birth climate in my state, the only option I have for avoiding a repeat cesarean at this point is a home birth. I am not too disappointed though. Our local home birth midwife has also had two cesareans, and I love her to pieces. We have already talked in detail about my next child and she is fully on board with me.  Although we aren’t planning #3 for quite a few YEARS.
I must say though, hearing about all the ladies TTC on twitter has given me the bug….
Till my 9 month old promptly squashes it!

I invite you to join us on Monday for more of a discussion. I am sure between Gina, Karen, and myself it will be a great hour full of lots of information, hope and education.

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