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?

[TheWriterTX]

Dear Gobucks: I had 8 hours of back labor, two hours of normal labor, and 5 hours of induced hard labor (after 36 hours of no sleep). Let me assure you, as someone who went natural ALL THE WAY THROUGH and has a high tolerance to pain, I have NEVER experienced pain of this level before - to the point that I was screaming, cursing at people, and miserable.

For me, the pain literally stopped the instant my son cleared my body.

Despite this, eighteen months later, I was ready to go natural again. Sadly, it was not meant to be. I experienced a 30% abruption of my uterus during my 32nd week and my daughter was born via emergency c-section.

Despite epidurals being a common practice, there is a lot that can go wrong. I chose natural because I didn't want to put my spine at risk.

While I can understand your desire to go with a midwife, I strongly caution you to consider all the options. My daughter and I both came very close to dying; my mother almost died giving birth to my brother, David, due to hemmoraghing during a breach birth. My girlfriend, Verna, had a vein rupture and blood was literally fountaining out of her. She's very lucky she didn't have a stroke and/or die during delivery; because the hospital staff was on hand to save her and her son.

There is so much that can go wrong during delivery; even seemingly healthy women can have something terrible and unexpected happen; you don't want to go all that way and be so close, to lose your child in the final moments.

[JudgemAll]

It is culture of hate of men blamed for the pregnancy and "beating" women, territoriality of women over men and over the child.

I was told natural birth was better because pain killers mess up the tracking of contractions and what not. We did end up using them a bit at the end but it made her head spin bad and uncomfortable. The pain actually seemed uncontrollable and brathing not adequate.

I dunno what really is best, but people are really abnoxiously nozy and ideological.

What they really mean is that they do not like chidren or you to have a kid. They're jealous or annoyed by the kid culture.

[ZinGirl]

Excellent....we need more Conservatives having more children into good families in America.

check out my profile page. My two kids sitting with my sisters' and brothers' kids. (actually, it's from last summer...and two more have been added!)

[Antoninus]

Well, we come from a good Catholic family, so we have heard little of this over the course of our three pregnancies. My wife had an epidural for the first delivery, but the second and third happened too quickly. A quick labor is a blessing, according to my wife. She breast fed the first for 3 months, the second for about 9 months and is on month 4 with the third one as we speak. Aside from being cheaper, breast-feeding is more healthy for the kid and satisfying for mom (at least that's what she tells me). The first few weeks will be difficult, but if your wife keeps at it, it's apparently a very rewarding experience.

That said, on the rare occasion that some classless individual has made some comments about our reproductive "choices" (funny how the choice of Life tends to attract criticism from the "pro-choice" crowd), we use it as an opportunity to evangelize--and to expound on the absolute joy of being a mother or father three times over, with hopefully more on the way, God willing.

May God bless you, your wife, and your child. Do the kid a favor and give him a couple brothers and sisters!

[sausageseller]

I don't buy the stress line. Our fourth was had at a birthing center out in the country with a midwife. Hospitals and their staff cause a lot of stress.

My wife said she was sick we paid all those hospital and OBGYN bills for the craziness they push on you. And I agreed with her 100%

[exnavychick]

You don't buy the stress line?? Wowee. I don't disagree that there are lots of annoying things about having a baby in the hospital, but that's not the kind of stress I was referring to.

I was referring to the PHYSICAL stress of birthing a child. Some folks tolerate it much better than others...and some women can become downright hysterical if the pain is bad enough, and/or they don't have support, either from hospital staff or family.

My wife said she was sick we paid all those hospital and OBGYN bills for the craziness they push on you. And I agreed with her 100%

Could you rephrase that, please? I am not clear on what you are trying to say exactly with that, so I won't comment until I understand.

[Spyder]

Every woman who has had a child considers herself an expert. Thanks to Army medicine, I had both my kids essentially naturally (anesthesia wasn't on call for "routine" deliveries). But dang it, I would have had the epidural if I could have. I'm not "into" the pain thing. I've had two epidurals for major knee surgeries since and they were awesome. Wide awake, no pain whatsoever.

One thing if you go the midwife route - just be sure you're close enough to a medical institution and all the extras IF an emergency should arise. No matter how good the midwife is, and that's a great choice - there are some excellent ones, emergencies do arise that can make the difference between a normal kid and one handicapped for life.

A pediatrician we worked with had it happen to him - normal pregnancy, was going to deliver their baby himself with a nice quiet home delivery. Except that small likelihood of something going wrong did, and their child was left with cerebral palsy for life. Had they been a door or two down from the emergency equipment the baby could have been resuscitated immediately with no loss of oxygen to its brain.

Sad case, but it does happen.

[Arpege92]

No, you didn't hit a nerve. I was just trying to get my point across. No hard feelings on my part. :-}

[LoudRepublicangirl]

I guess whatever keeps mom calm and relaxed so that the baby doesn't experience lack of oxygen or birth injury is the best route whether it is natural or whether painkillers are introduced.

[wardaddy]

girls are more trying as they get older

Precisely.

[Spyder]

Hmmm... I disagree. Our son has gotten tougher, our daugher easier. She's the oldest, now first year college, and excelling in everything. She's more emotional, yes, but she's also more dedicated to succeeding. Except for about 2 days each month we get along fantastically. She's had her moments with her dad, but they both have tempers and the type of personality that escalates an easy argument into a full blown screaming session.

[wardaddy]

I think the conventional wisdom (meaning more often than not) is that pre-school boys take more effort and discipline.

If you have been spared that then God bless.

My daughters were a piece of cake as kids.

Now they are...well....revolutionaries...lol

But I blame my ex mostly for that. She is no hammer.

I am.

[Spyder]

Yes, I guess I was spared that, though our boy as an infant was the worst - mostly due to inability to sleep with horrible ear infections, not helped by the fact my husband was in Korea the whole year. As a toddler he was a pussycat. As a teenager he's a bit like Jeremy in the Zits cartoon - no need to do any more than what is requested (if that) and he takes things very literally - you have to detail that "pick up your room" means more than just shoving everything in the closet and pushing the door shut.

He's very intelligent in the classes he enjoys, very happy with a C in classes where he's not that jazzed with the teacher. He loves piano, so that's really been impressive of late.

His sister is compulsive, though - gotta have the top A. No revolutionary at all other than preferring to be casual and modest, which for a state school is pretty revolutionary.

Now if only some of the compulsiveness would rub off on the boy, I'd even settle for less of it in the daughter (she'd be a lot less stressed).

[Arpege92]

Yep, healthy babies and healthy moms are all we can ask for. :-}

[AnAmericanMother]

I'm late to the fair here, but I'll put my two cents' worth in . . . because I am one of the ladies who "went natural" and had a relatively painless, quick, and uneventful delivery.

1. Get educated, you AND your bride. Knowledge is power in this case. The more you both know about what's going on, the better you will be able to make decisions while labor is in progress. This was crucial in our case, my husband was my clear-headed support and advocate!

2. Make sure that your OB and your midwife (if you have one) are willing to communicate with you what's going on - good or bad. Again, this was crucial in our case!

3. Take the childbirth classes (we had Lamaze 'cause that's the course that was taught by the head of maternity nursing at our hospital!) The breathing techniques really worked for us, we even experimented with the monitor to prove it.

4. Expect the unexpected, and go with it. Labor will not go like you expect, and so you have to adapt to what happens. If I had had a difficult and lengthy labor without much progress over a long period of time, or any kind of troubles like a funny presentation, you BET I would have had the epidural. (In fact my labor progressed so rapidly that I was in transition before we knew it, I did ask for an epidural but my husband said "check her one more time" and I was 10 cm dilated and plus two - baby arrived in 10 more minutes! Again, knowledge is power - when the doc told me I was 10 and plus two, I said, "Aw heck, this isn't that bad!" and suddenly it wasn't. It was the THOUGHT of 12-20 MORE hours at that level of discomfort that made me ask for the epidural.)

5. Do note that an epidural takes awhile to wear off, and the next day you are likely to have a TERRIBLE headache. Out of the 20 or so women who were in labor that night, I was the only one who went natural, and the next morning I was up and about, strolling the halls, and playing with my baby, while most (not all) of the other ladies were stretched out on their beds with splitting headaches. Of course they may have improved the process -- my information is 16 years old -- but be sure to ask.

6. Does it hurt? Yeah, but when I had my knee drained for a torn ACL it hurt a lot worse. Having my wisdom teeth out hurt a lot worse. What it IS is the hardest work I have ever done in my life. I felt like I was trying to lift railroad ties by myself - heart-cracking, mouth-drying, muscle-straining, HARD WORK (that's why they call it LABOR.)

7. Do go to the hospital. They have nice birthing rooms now with all the comforts of home, but with the emergency equipment right next door. Most births are so uneventful as to be boring, but you don't want to be that odd one out. My sister in law probably would have died if she had tried to have her baby at home - one of those last minute, one in a million emergencies - but it isn't rare if it happens to you. But she and the baby are both fine, thanks to all that wonderful diagnostic and surgical equipment they just happen to have in the hospital.

[gobucks]

Many thanks for your thoughtful suggestions .... and I can't get over how many wonderfully nice comments were provided. The big thing is this: the incredible encouragement for natural methods. I was really surprised, and yours is one more to them. So, many thanks.

[Thumper1960]

Cosby said it was like pulling your lower lip up over your forehead.

Either way, when my wife delivers our first together, it'll be her call.

BTW, gobucks, congratulations and best of luck....no matter what others say.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Once when I *was* looking, but it happened so lightning fast...

I was in the back of an elevator, I had my stroller beside me, and my preschooler standing on the other side of the stroller. The door opened, a group of elderly folks got on, when one elderly lady immediately proceeded to lick her fingertips, and smudge her slobber on my 2½ year old's forehead! Ewwwwwww! My preschooler, who was quite shy back then, tried to get to me behind the stroller, but we all were so crammed in, nothing budged. And as if all of the above wasn't bad enough, in that nanosecond trying to console my now-tearful child on the other side of the stroller, I looked up to find Mrs. Slobber-lady wiping my 4 month old's spit-up with her husband's hanky.

Do not leave home without the Bjorn.

:)

[AnAmericanMother]

I think the important thing is not to get fixated on "doing childbirth" in a particular way.

My obstetrician (recently deceased, God rest his soul) had a heart to heart with me one time. He was one of the first in this country to adopt the Grantley Dick-Read natural childbirth methods (Dr. Dick-Read was an Englishman and the father of the natural childbirth method -- my MOTHER did Dick-Read methods when she had me back in the Early Pleistocene (actually, back in 1955). She had to hunt all over for an obstetrician who would do it.)

Anyhow, my doc said that for awhile he was convinced that Dick-Read's methods were the answer to all childbirths -- and he pressured some of his patients into doing it that way. He had decided after years in the business (he died in harness after over 50 years of practicing obstetrics) that he needed to be flexible and consider that childbirth is not "one size fits all". And he recommended that approach to me. What a wise man.

[gobucks]

I put this out last weekend, and though I have now been able to discover a few 'all naturals' here locally in recent days, the epi crowd is still the winner by a country mile.

I figured you two would find this thread to be a nice diversion.. its results really surprised me. Freepers are into natural far more than I would have guessed! But it makes sense.