Mama Mama Quite Contrary

Yeah, that's right. I was incredulous too. Wednesday night I went to a screening of a film with that very title and while it might not have been the wisest idea to watch a birthing video twelve weeks postpartum, I was intrigued by the idea. I wouldn't have descr ibed any of my daughters' births as orgasmic by any stretch of the imagination yet I had heard such a thing was possible. I wanted to see if that was really the case. Since my first pregnancy with Vivi, I've had an interest in birth and how it is regarded in our country. I read the usual suspects when it came to pregnancy books. Everything from What to Expect When You're Expecting (two enthusiastic thumbs down on that one... should be called How to Make You Into a Neurotic Mess When You're Expecting) to the inimitable Birthing From Within . As a childless woman, I feared birth and always imagined I would make the most of what western medicine offered me. Once I became pregnant, however, I wante...

We didn't necessarily plan to have our nearly 3 year-old witness the birth of her twin sisters. As we were planning our homebirth, a part of me wanted Vivi out of the house so I could completely focus on getting the babies out. The other part wanted her there because she was so devoted to my growing belly and her "Turtles." She knew all about the placenta and where the babies would come out and that mommy was likely to be in a lot of pain. I thought that might traumatize her but my midwife assured me that it wouldn't. After all, birth has historically been a family event not a medical one. It just seemed to be a shame not to let Vivi see how the whole thing ended. I was torn about what to do right up until my labor started. Since we had put Vivi to bed right before things really got going, I thought it would be best to let her sleep. If she woke up at an inconvenient time, we could call our friend. If she slept through the whole thing, then she would get to meet her s...

When we found out we were expecting a baby last summer, my husband and I decided that we would pursue a homebirth. It seemed to make sense for us. I had a very straightforward birth with Vivi and was committed to doing it again without any interventions. Plus, with a $10,000 deductible for our health insurance, it would save us a whole heaping pile of cash. (And who doesn't love a bargain?) The discovery of twins at the end of November threw us for a loop. Our homebirth midwife begged off and we found ourselves negotiating a medical system with the label "high risk" stamped on my forehead. The fact that I had already birthed a nearly 9 pound baby smoothly didn't seem to matter. Nor did it make a difference that both of my grandmothers had twins vaginally at full-term. I was simply a uterus with two babies with the potential for a host of problems. Although I wanted to give birth in the comfort of my home, I had no one to attend it so I returned to the hospital-based m...

Soon after we discovered I was pregnant with Vivi, my husband bought me a copy of Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin. Like many women who are pregnant for the first time, I was afraid of giving birth. I had only heard horror stories from other women who described birth as "absolutely unbearable" and appeared profoundly traumatized by the experience. No one seemed willing to tell me what I could reasonably expect and the mystery scared the hell out of me. Ina May's book changed all that. The first section was full of positive birth stories. None of the writers omitted how painful the process was or minimized the strength it took to deliver a baby and I really appreciated that. Instead of feeling afraid, I began to feel empowered. I started to believe in my body's ability to birth without intervention. Over the next seven months, I found a wonderful midwife, read as many books as I could, and even made flashcards to remind myself that "the pain is...