Working alone

It seems like a lot of people are surprised that I did pretty much all of labor with Orren by myself. I didn't wake up Thak, and I didn't call our midwife. I just didn't want to be messed with, so I didn't ask anyone to mess with me. It was really that simple. It seems like a lot of people do not understand this, and one friend even told me yesterday that he thought it was sad that Thak slept through pretty much the whole thing. I said, "Why's it sad? He'd have woken up if I'd asked him to. I just didn't want to deal with having a baby, AND explaining everything to him, AND holding him off from calling our midwife too early, AND trying to tell him what I needed him to do. My labor would have been twice as long if I'd woken him up." Hearing that, he understood better, but was still a little floored. When his kids were born, his ex-wife did the whole hospital birth thing, so he was there, sitting in the uncomfortable institutional furniture, a front row seat to the whole spectacle. It's a little hard to imagine just sleeping in your own bed, waking up at a normal hour of the morning, calling the midwife, and having a baby a couple hours later, then sleeping in your own bed again that night. Non-hospital birth is a very different experience... even for the dads.

I thought it was interesting that I stumbled upon this quote yesterday.

"The most common cause for a long and difficult labor is the presence of the baby's father." ~Michel Odent, M.D.

Michel Odent is a very well respected French obstetrician. He is a huge advocate of natural birth, a friend of midwifery, and just a generally very good doctor. He's NOT the enemy. A lot of people think this quote of his of his crosses a line, though. It made me laugh when I saw it, because I KNOW it's true for me. I'm just reminded of all these birth TV shows where everyone's just sitting there and watching the mom labor, and she's getting stressed, and ends up with all these interventions and a super long labor, and all this other crap, but it seems to me like it's the old "watched pot" thing more than anything else. (They never boil, you know.)

Dr. Odent also thinks that the best attendant for the majority of births, is a very hands-off midwife, who will leave the mom alone unless there's a real need for her to step in. I tend to agree with that. That's one reason why I chose Alyson. Out of all the local midwives, she seemed the one who would most naturally fill that role. Our account of Orren's birth, and the fact that we thought it was pretty much perfect, minus the car ride to the birth center, was a great litmus test for midwives when we interviewed them. Any who cringed a little at me laboring alone by choice, would not be a fit. Any who smiled, or nodded knowingly, were more in line with our needs for this birth. We want what Dr. Odent describes.

What's more, Thak knows that he won't be playing the role of doula unless something changes, and that he'll probably either sleep, work, or something else, through the majority of the labor, until the end. Depending how I feel, Alyson may be here with me through several hours, but in a hands-off capacity until the very end.

It isn't sad. It isn't strange. In fact, few things in this world could be more biologically appropriate. Do you really think we are the only mamalian species that actually evolved with the preference of being watched through the birth process? After having had a completely unassisted labor the second time, I can tell you that I don't buy that for a minute. We are just like our fellow mammals in that we instinctively don't want to be messed with. That's why I like working alone. It is a recipe for success.