Birth in Suburbia, Carol Falaki [electronic reader .TXT] 📗

sounds of other voices, gentle clatter, and background music.
Jonathan and Natalie sat on the grass plotting their next adventure. A bee worked in the pot of geraniums by her feet. Debbie’s baby stirred.
“I am going to have my baby at home, I have made up my mind,” Liz announced. She glanced at her mum and then went on. “I went on the tour of the maternity unit last night; that decided me. When I saw that awful bed in the middle of the delivery room, and listened to the midwife while she presented all of this medical equipment, so matter of fact, I thought, ‘no way’. I felt I would be trapped. Having my baby would really mean confinement, on that bed, with a monitor strapped to me. I am not going to just lie on that bed, like I’m ill, and have things done to me. I am going to give birth. I have decided that I am not going to be to be confined, unless I have to be.”
“I wish I had the courage to do that,” Helen said, “But I would be so worried about the baby. What if something happened, I think I would blame myself.”
“What if something were to go wrong?” Debbie asked, looking incredulous. The thought of not going into hospital to have her baby had never crossed her mind.
“Liz has told me how she feels,” Maggie said, “And we have talked everything through. I believe that the choice must be hers, and she has a good point when she talks about not wanting to be confined to bed for labour, which is what so often happens in hospital. We are only ten minutes away from the maternity unit; Liz
can be transferred in if she has any problems.”
“Apparently,” Liz added, “It’s just as safe at home for you and your baby, providing you have had problem free pregnancy and you are well.”
“That’s true,” Maggie agreed, “but what Liz had to consider was, with this being her first baby, she is more likely to be transferred into hospital during labour than a woman who has already had a baby. Being transferred in the middle of labour is not much fun.”
“At least a one in three chance of being transferred,” Liz confirmed. “Although not necessarily because there’s a problem, it might be because you want an epidural.”
“That’s still too high for me,” Helen said
“Being in labour doesn’t sound like much fun either way,” Leo said.
“No, Leo, thank God you are a man, eh?” Chrissy was on her fourth glass of wine and was ready to throw caution to the wind. Debbie had noticed how she kept glancing over to where Michael was now standing and leaning over to Chrissy she whispered,
“Are you staying cool and mysterious?”
“It’s bloody difficult, Debs. How am I doing?”
“Super, you are beginning to sound like the television when the adverts come on. Turn the volume down, just a little.” Debbie smirked and they both began to giggle.
Talking about labour made Debbie feel anxious, but the need to know everything possible
about it outweighed all other reason. She wanted to know all there was to know; just in case it would help her on the day.
It was like watching a movie which frightened and enthralled at the same time. Debbie always went to make a cup of tea at the scary bits, but kept looking back because she didn’t want to miss anything.
“Would anyone care for a coffee?” Chrissy asked, and proceeded to take requests. Michael offered to help. Chrissy stopped to kiss Debbie’s cheek on her way into the kitchen with him.
“Cool,” she whispered.
“Mysterious,” Debbie replied, and caught her glass before Chrissy accidentally knocked it off the table.
“What about pain relief?” Helen asked. “You might change your mind about an epidural.”
“I don’t want one, you end up with a drip, sometimes a catheter, you can’t move around, and you are more likely to have interventions, like an episiotomy and forceps, or perhaps a caesarean. No thanks,” Liz explained. “And you and your baby can get a raised temperature.”
“But how do you know if you can manage without one, until you know how it feels?” Debbie asked.
“That’s the difficulty, isn’t it? We don’t know how it feels, and we don’t know how long it will go on for, until it happens. I think that must make it more difficult. Knowing how long you have to cope with the pain must be an important part of the equation. For me now the
important question is what do I want? For you the question is, what do you want? Debbie, I know that I don’t want an epidural if I can help it.”
“It depends how bad the pain is, doesn’t it?” Helen added.
“How you feel can also depend on who is with you and the environment you are in,” Maggie said.
“There are many things that will affect how you feel on the day. Not necessarily things that take the pain away, but things that help you to work with the pain and help you to get through. If you don’t want pain then you go for the epidural, but, like Liz says, that often comes with a price.”
“But having all that pain, that’s a big price to pay,” Debbie protested. “And what if it goes on for ages?”
“You have to decide, Debbie,” Maggie replied. “You must allow yourself to choose what you want and try not to compare yourself with others.
“There are as many birth stories as there are people on this planet and every one of them is different. The important thing is to feel safe, comfortable and supported.” My midwife said that at the antenatal class.” Helen added.
“And time,” Liz added. “Time is a product of culture, not nature, yet women have to labour against the clock. Have you ever considered the possibility that so much is geared towards the system, and that the some of the information we are presented with is propaganda? Being pregnant appears to mean that I have choices, but if I don’t understand what my choices really mean
to me and my baby, how can I be expected to make the right ones?”
“But there is so much information, how do you choose?” Helen wondered.
“Women used to be in labour for days on end,” Debbie said.
“I don’t advocate going back to that, I mean - providing everything is alright with you and the baby - just being allowed to wait for things to progress naturally, if you are happy with that; rather than being persuaded into things you don’t really want,” Liz explained. “You don’t question it, what they tell you I mean, do you? You always think they know best, and you feel vulnerable.”
“Or you want to get it over with as quickly as possible,” Debbie added reasonably.
“Yes and if that’s not enough there is always the, ‘It’s best for your baby, dear',” Helen said.
“But what if what they are suggesting is best for your baby?” Debbie was feeling confused. She agreed with much of what Liz was saying but there were many imposing issues to weigh, one against the other.
“Do you trust your own instincts?” Liz continued.
“I do sometimes.”
“Do you doubt yourself?”
“I do,” Debbie replied, and Helen and Leo nodded in agreement.
“Have you ever wondered why you doubt yourself?”
Liz asked.
Debbie suspected Liz had suffered, and could understand her desire to demonstrate this rekindled belief in herself, and she admired her for it, but she had her own reservations. She had grown up with the belief that a hospital was the safest place to have a baby, even though she disliked them, and also felt afraid of going into one. It just seemed that it was the proper thing to do. Michael had appeared with a tray of steaming coffee cups.
“Who’s having coffee?” Debbie moved some of the clutter from the table to make room for it.
“Thank you,” she said to him. "He has blue eyes," she thought, still wondering about the way he looked at her. Was she imagining it? She forgot to tell him she hadn’t had a cup of coffee for months.
“My pleasure,” this time he spoke quietly, it seemed to her alone; then he returned to the kitchen.
“I just believe,” Liz continued, “That I am the one who knows how I feel, better than any doctor, midwife, or anyone else for that matter and I have an overwhelming sense of protection towards my baby. I will go into hospital to have my baby the moment there is a problem that means it will be safer there than at home.”
“You would think that women could have the best of both worlds in this day and age,” Leo said. “Somewhere where you can feel at home and have emergency care on hand if you need it.”
“There are some places like that,” Maggie
agreed, “Midwifery Led Units, but they are few and far between, we looked around. Women get transferred from these units to the obstetric hospital if there’s a problem, like they would from home.”
“What can we do?” Helen asked, “You feel vulnerable when you go into hospital, and you have the baby, not just yourself, to consider.”
A distant roll of thunder interrupted their conversation. Debbie watched Sean. He looked up to the sky, then, continued talking to David and Tom, stopping every now and then to turn the last of the food on the barbecue.
“Good timing,” he called over to them indicating towards the sky as he spoke. “This is the last lot.”
“Find out as much as you want to know beforehand,” Maggie said, going back to the subject of childbirth. “Don’t be afraid to ask as many questions as you need to about why they want to do this and that to you, and remember you can say 'no', or, 'I’d like to wait and see'.