When I logged into my blog today, after many weeks of neglecting to post, I was surprised to find how little is actually posted about my first loves: my family and midwifery. Why is so easy to write about laundry detergent (when I loathe doing laundry), and difficult to post about my births (which I love!)?
I guess the reasons are time and privacy. When I'm busy, I don't tend to write as much since I'd much rather catch up on my sleep. I'm pretty involved in my births, which leaves me exhausted! And I can't exactly blab the details of a patient's birth on my personal blog, although I do write about many of them. Most posts never make it past "draft" because I worry that my patients will come across their story while they are recovering at home. To be honest, I think the woman giving birth views her experience very differently than I do, and I think many women would be shocked to hear their birth story from the midwife's point of view: how she did so well, or how that family member was such a distraction in the room. Reading my point of view might only serve to undermine their sense of accomplishment.
Case in point: when I had my last daughter, I gave birth in the standing position. I was thrilled to have this option, and it was the easiest of all my deliveries (despite the fact that I was a Cytotec induction, on Pitocin, almost 42 weeks pregnant.....yeah, we did that back then). Years later, when I was apprenticing with the midwife who delivered her, she told me she thought I didn't get into the bed because I was "freaked out". This was soooo far from what I was actually feeling! I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment for being able to birth in the position I was most comfortable, and extremely grateful to her for not insisting I do things her way.
I am always surprised at the comments women make a few weeks after their births, when they have processed everything. One patient I delivered in the squatting position seemed to be having some kind of personal crisis as she pushed. I didn't quite get it at the time, but afterward she told me that all she could think about was that her legs weren't as strong as she'd thought, and she was having a hard time maintaining her position! Another woman who wouldn't push AT ALL later told me that her mother told her while she was in labor that she'd had a stroke eight months after one of her births, so the patient was worried that if she pushed something like that would happen to her.
Being in labor is such an emotional time, and it's sometimes hard to judge just why someone is feeling the way they are. I try to keep that in mind as I write about my births, and to be objective. The girl who beat up her boyfriend while pushing must have had something on her mind, but all I can talk about is what I saw!
I'm saving all my drafts in hopes that someday I'll get the nerve to post them. There are some really amazing portraits of some really strong women. I know you'll be inspired by them!
