My Pregnant Wife: An Unexpected Target in the Culture Wars

Vanity ^ | 2 Apr 05 | gobucks

[gobucks]

"Don't you dare guilt your wife into having a natural childbirth!", I am told by a nice woman I know at church. I have known this lady for some time, and we have never talked politics. Suddenly, my wife is hot political topic #1. And though the politics are 'under the radar', my wife is clearly a target in the ongoing cultural war.

Until my wife started to dramatically enlarge during this last trimester, comments like these had been few. Now, it is a torrent. "What hospital? What OB? You are getting an epidural, right? What brand of formula do you plan to use (as if we will collapse immediately into the arms of the Enfamil salesman)? You are not going to breast feed too long, are you? Are you on a waiting list yet for infant day care?"

My wife and I, married over 10 years with all kinds of issues associated with getting pregnant are about to be parents of a boy in a few weeks. We are of course, thrilled and overjoyed.

But the political overtones of how we bring him into the world are just unreal. The unending stream of opinion and advice about it, with over 95 percent of it being something like this: "don't be stupid. Get the epidural." We have yet to have a single woman report to us that having her baby in a fully undrugged state was a good idea.

Why is labor today so terrifying for women? Why is it that husbands are being taught that encouraging a woman to experience a full unmedicated delivery is akin to treating her like a barbarian? Heck, I've told my wife I am not the one having the baby, and thus, I'm not about to dictate to her how it should be done; I simply said I like the idea of natural childbirth and that is it. Why is this so politically incorrect? Why are hordes of women pouring out of the woodwork yelling at us to make sure she gets the drugs, the epidural?

What the heck is going on such that bringing a child into the world has to be so .... upsetting?

And these are women at my church! I can just imagine what a hapless secular woman in some lonely cul-de-sac must endure.

I'm a typical Chistian man with a very pregnant wife. I have an atypical enthusiasm for most things associated with FreeRepublic. I'm looking for reports from any of you husbands (or their wives) out there have experienced the kind of unreal cultural pressure my wife and I have undergone as this last trimester winds down.

I have googled around, looking for articles about this - and it is just about nada. Mostly stuff on teen pregnancy and abortion. Zilch regarding ordinary married folks who are being pressured to have a 'modern' birth experience.

I'm I the only one who is seeing how a pregnant woman is somehow a political lightning rod these days?

[HitmanLV]

Fid you call Dr Mike Savage on the Savage Nation on Friday with this question? He had a caller who specifically asked about his thoughts on natural childbirth.

[sausageseller]

Sorry, I have been there for all 4 of my children's birth. While in a lot of pain they want you to sign the consent forms. And the nurses are pushing the patient to take the drugs. ie Are you in a lot of pain? How about some newbane?

They don't tell the patient the baby will come out "drunk" on the newbane!

They push the epidural. Yet don't tell them in many cases it slows down contractions.

Like I said in my previous post. The mid wife and the birth center in the country was the best. It cut out the money grubbing drug pushers!

[Bushforlife]

"You obviously have if it bothered you so much that your wife wasn't behaving in the manner in which you saw fit while she gave birth to your child. Talk about the world revolving around you."

Your position is apparently that the act of giving birth to a child entitles one to practically any behavior, no matter how abusive. Interesting worldview. A man who while having a kidney stone attack perhaps in far more pain who behaved abusively to his wife would not be cut the slack you feel must be cut to a woman having birth.

"I'm giving birth, I have the right to act any way I want, even to belittling and striking a man for whom this is a very special day as well".

The possession of a uterus is very empowering.

[Bushforlife]

And if they DONT offer the drugs, the patients complain to the state and to the hospital that "they didn't even care about my pain, they didn't even offer me anything for it". Your perception of the offer is that they are pushing the drugs/epidural. I don't agree.

[ShadowDancer]

There is no way on God's green earth that if I was witnessing my husband go through a kidney stone attack that I would be pompous and insecure enough to tell him that I understood his 'inappropriate' behavior', etc. if he spoke to me unkindly. I would let it go knowing it was what it was. Condesending remarks are not love. Biting your tongue and letting a remark go when the person whom you love most in the world is in incredible pain is.

And, I don't even know one woman who has hit her husband during child birth. If that is really what your wife did to you, given what you've written here, it may say more about you than it does her.

[M0sby]

Well...you could come out here to the land of "Hippies" and liberals!
Lamaze and LeLeche haven!
Then, you would find that you would be pressured to go ALL NATURAL..all the way!
(Not by the Doc's necessarily...but by the CULTURE out here)
Oh, and forget about considering formula or a bottle! ACK!!!
Or any type of routine for the child...

This is NATURAL CAPITAL! (well...maybe with the exception of Oregon.)

I say it is up to your wife...like you said.

But at the end of the day, there are no awards for natural childbirth...and no penalties for it either.

No one should feel guilty for using medication...and no one should be made to feel as though a medicated birth is the only way to go.
That being said, I think if my husband had said that he liked the idea of natural childbirth, I might have felt "guilty" about choosing medication...

[Bushforlife]

your one point is that if you are hit, you must have done something wrong. Gosh, you're a wife beaters' dream come true.

Your other point is that you would just sit there and do nothing if you were called a f******* c***. Hard to swallow.

[RightOnline]

Wife had six kids perfectly naturally......most were well over 10 pounds. Not even an epidural or an aspirin.

Number 7 came along in her mid 40's and was an emergency C section.

Nursed each one till past a year old.

It's NO one's business how you bring your child into the world or how you feed him/her or how you educate them.

[ShadowDancer]

That's the way your wife spoke to you?

[Bushforlife]

I've fortunately personally never suffered the level of abuse I have witnessed MANY MANY time in a health care setting over 20 years.

[TASMANIANRED]

Are the rest of them as beautiful and the 7th?

[ShadowDancer]

So your wife has never struck you nor called you names in the delivery room yet you felt it necessary to speak to her in that condescending tone at that time?

[Tax-chick]

Yes :-). The pictures are on the Tax-chick page.

[TASMANIANRED]

Your kids look like the family I sprang from. 10 of us and you can follow features through all of us. Cookie cutter kids with different hair colors.

Great looking family. Ya done good.

[Tax-chick]

Thanks! I'm hoping for 10 :-). There's a group that looks more like my husband, and a group that looks more like me ... but they all look mostly like each other!

[Lancey Howard]

Do whatever's best for the baby.
As for your wife, it's 2005 - - get some anasthesia for the girl.

By the way, I read a report some years ago that babies born by c-section end up with higher IQs than babies born the normal way. I don't know about that, but c-section babies sure look nicer right after birth - - their heads aren't all out of shape.

Good luck!
LH

[HungarianGypsy]

Aha! SOmeone else who did not scream or swear at their husband during childbirth. I have always made a conscious decision not to yell at my husband. Actually he's the one who talks me through everything. I screamed in general with my fourth baby, but he was a 10 pounder and pushing just burned. I felt like such a wimp. When my children talk about my last delivery (I was sure I made such a fuss) they like to talk about me saying, "Owie! Owie! Owie!" over and over.

[TASMANIANRED]

I wish you luck on getting to ten.

Once you have 5, cooking for 5 more isn't that difficult.

Routines and organization are very important.

My Mom was the most organized multi-tasking woman I ever knew. The older I get the more I stand in amazement of her.

[HungarianGypsy]

Don't miss out on squatting as a technique to complete the birth. Whoever thought lying on your back was a great way to push a baby out had no understanding of gravity, and must have been a salesman for epidural kits.
Interesting bit of trivia. I don't remember where I read it, so it may just be rumor, but I read that it was Louis XIV who first had his mistresses give birth in this position.

[HungarianGypsy]

And, I don't even know one woman who has hit her husband during child birth. If that is really what your wife did to you, given what you've written here, it may say more about you than it does her.
When my best friend was a teen she had some cramps so badly that she would bang her head against a wall, because she was in a lot of pain with the cramps. When she gave birth she found out later she was doing the same to her husband's hip. I think during child birth women are often in a kind of fog. It's almost like a dream feeling.