Posted on 04/02/2005 4:36:04 AM PST by 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?
Good advice on your dead-on post - he won't like it though! lol
Good, girl.
Motherbear, yours is such an excellent post! I hope gobucks ~reads~ it.
Congratulations on your upcoming newborn! All three of you are gonna be just fine. This stuff happens all the time. My wife and I went thru the hospital routine because she has cerebral palsy and uses crutches to get around so she was in bed for the last three months of the pregnancy. Ended up with a c-section and a healthy 7 lb 3 0z. healthy baby boy :o) He's 17 now and about to graduate high school and we've been married for 28 years. New life is a miracle that God has given us all. Some people seem disturbed when they hear crying babies in the grocery store or in church or wherever. I love it! It reminds me that everything has a new beginning and things are gonna be alright. Just my 2 cents. Don't sweat the small stuff. And again...Congratulations!
"Are you sure you're not the lesbian partner of some pregnant woman? There sure aren't too many men who are as active in this whole process as you are, and my husband is a VERY active and involved father. :)"
Well I'm going to respond to the other posts in the morning, but I couldn't wait on this one.
Your tone sounds quite candid, blunt ... directive. You must be a first born daughter...right? I bet your 'VERY' active husband makes you laugh alot ... for last borns tend to marry first borns, and they tend to be cut ups in class.
I am not a lesbian. (sounds of chuckles dying down... tone switch to serious ....)
I'm just quite aware of a this reality: people lie. Incessantly. The vast majority of the lies are lies of omission, which most folks prefer to label circumspection. Of course, at times, circumspection is appropriate, but most times, it is abused in the name of 'peace'.
We are a nation of peace lovers ... and in consequence of that improper prioritization, we witness way, way too many marriages wage silent war.
(I didn't really dream about growing up to think like this ... but I'll offer that I have two female relatives with PhDs in bioscience ... and they indeed act like it - my family saw fit in other words, to provide me with a non-traditional upbringing - one I would not have chosen - ... and I have pretty strong feelings about seeking reality, and disregarding convention in the process... :)
That all said, I'm quite nuts about mrs. gb..)
The reason so few men are not active in the whole process is the same reason that at Christian bookstores, in the section how to be married effectively, you'll find wives, countless wives, and virtually zero husbands. That ratio should be the opposite. (Book for the ages: 'Federal Husband' by Douglas Wilson.)
My wife will receive my support, rest assured. And I can easily confess to the reality I am tempted frequently to be 'controlling'. My wife ... ha! She has that text book in its 12th edition!!! But, bear this in mind motherbear ... my aim is not to control anything .... for I am not the one doing the work. Furthermore, by the Grace of God I am going to witness a bunch of stuff HE, and only HE controls.
My aim is to be effective while we pursue this unorthodox road called 'natural' child birth. It's been a heck of an education so far...
Now, as for the 94 percent stat, I'm going to check into it more ...... I'm not into false advirtising.
lesbian .... sheesh ....
If you would like to know more, you can ask my wife through freepmail.
her sign on is tutstar.
I think you have a healthy perspective. I am not sure I understand the whole motivation of 'natural childbirth as a higher religious experience'. Use the comforts and safety of medicine. We don't suffer the cold because that's how God made the climate, we buy heaters. ;~D
9. Circumcision: I would welcome more comments about this ... I figure we'll just do the routine as the hospital suggests, but still ...
Well, FWIW, the big local childbirth hospital in our area had an incident, maybe two (it has been a while, can't remember), less than a year before our son was born, and burned off the penis of a kid (or two, I can't remember). Yikes!
We chose to forego foreskin removal. It just didn't seem a requirement.
I'm all for natural, but before I had my children I did not get any encouragement except in books.
The thing is, you really don't know how bad it will be [pain/ hard work] until you are in the middle of it. You can't predict, and every baby is different.
You just have to get the best information that you can and make the best choice that you can, and be flexible if it doesn't go well.
I think you did a good thing to get more information.
A lot of the really bad things that happen come about because the parents weren't prepared [as in good nutrition, exercise, etc]. You are being responsible and preparing the best you can.
I got so many horror stories of babies who didn't live, that it is a wonder I had any children at all.
Best wishes for your child, I hope mrs.gb had fun at the shower.
Thanks for the ping.
May I say it was a very good thread to read.
Thank you so much for sharing your exhaustive research with us! May God abundantly bless you and your wife and your baby-to-be!
Good luck to your wife. I'm sure everything will go fine no matter what route she decides. Let us know all about the baby in June.
I would hazard a guess that most confident women produce slightly more testosterone than the average female.
Our second child was born in seventeen minutes, obviously no epidural and the pain was minimal, truly. I highly recommend natural childbirth. Best wishes to you, Mrs., and the baby.
Maybe .. but I have also noticed that most confident wives are married to husbands who leverage, in the appropriate manner, the testoterone God gave them ... and this creates the natural by-product known as a confident, feminine, wife...
An awful lot of husbands out there are deeply afraid of the power their wife has over them; I think wives, ever the intuitive types, start picking that up early on, and that leads to them feeling 'insecure'. For if their husbands are afraid of a woman, !, then the implications of what degree of courage he possesses begins to take hold ... and then all of life can get a bit edgy as a result.
Too many husbands simply abdicate - and their family suffers for it.
Thank you ... and mrs gb had a great time at the shower. Evidently, all the food, ALL of it, got eaten. No men showed up, which was good news. Lots of laughs too ...
I'll ping you in June and thank you again.
You are welcome!
Thank you!
"Congratulations to you and your wife and frankly, just ignore everyone."
You have the best advice for this couple.
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