Birth

I read this post on my friend's blog and was going to make a comment but realized it would be too long. So, I'm putting a link to the post here...read it first and then come back if you want...

I was at Women & Infants recently to get checked out after a car accident. I wanted to make sure Anika was okay. Because of the whole blood type RH thing, they decided I should have a Rogham shot. I am a pretty big baby when it comes to shots. I don't like them. They hurt. What's to like? So, afterwards the nurse commented that she thought it would be funny (in a coincidental type of way) if she was my nurse for Anika's birth and she had to be with me when I got an epidural. I explained that I was planning to have a drug free birth. She's like, "why???" I explained I thought it was better for the baby. She had this funny look on her face like, "this lady is nuts!"

I had an epidural with Sam, it wasn't my plan but I ended up with one. Looking back, I think it could have been avoided if I had done a couple things during labor differently...

1. Stayed home longer. I mistakenly thought, the sooner I get to the hospital, the sooner Sam will be born. I had done enough research to know differently but it was kind of a "simple mind" take over thing.

2. When I was at the hospital, I let the midwife break my water. Again that was me trying to rush things. I was already having enough problems handling the contractions. Having my water broked was a stupid thing to do. Midwife suggested it but I should have known better than to accept.

I consider going to the hospital the first intervention. It's not necessary to go to a hospital to have birth. It's certainly not necessary to go to that hospital to labor for birth. We do plan to have Anika in the hospital. But, I will try to stay home much longer this time.

The breaking of the water was the second intervention. Sam would have taken care of that when he was ready.

I then ended up needing the epidural - 3rd intervention. I didn't list that above as something I could have done differently because I don't think I could have. I was delirious with pain.

Then the interventions just kept coming, I don't know how many wires I had going up my hooha but it was definetely too many! I was so close to a C-section which would have been the ultimate intervention.

I know this is all kind of redundant since I wrote about all this in my birth story but since the post I referanced up top was about interventions, I wanted to point them out.

Now, to the point...I think we need to get to a place where if someone says, "I plan to have a drug free birth." the natural reaction would be, "of course!" And if someone says, "I plan to have an epidural" then the reaction would then be, "why?" (in a nice friendly curious way - not a judgemental look down upon way.)

The funny thing is, insurance companies are notorious for refusing to pay for things they deem unneccessary. We're talking procedures that can really help someone and improve the quality of their life. But, they have no problem at all in paying so much extra money for births where interventions were chosen even if they were not necessary. How did that happen? I think if someone has a drug free birth, the insurance company should give that person some type of credit or bonus or something. And if a person has a home birth, they should get a huge bonus! It's odd to think about but the industry that is known for being the worst offender when it comes to being money greedy could have a huge positive impact in the way babies are born...and still improve their bottom line. Maybe then people that need experimental treatments or things like that would have a better chance of having them covered by the insurance companies.