When you’re pregnant, one of the things you MUST do, aside from making your registry, getting the nursery ready, and maybe taking some prenatal classes, is to write your birth plan. The problem with birth plans, though, is that there are numerous factors that could throw a wrench in yours at any moment. Birth is unpredictable, right? Every labor is different, right? I’ll be honest, I haven’t written a birth plan because in my specific situation it didn’t seem necessary, but I can definitely see the wisdom in devoting some time to thinking about this momentous event, and about how I hope my babies come into this world.
These days it seems like you have a ton of options when it comes to birth. Hospital or home? Epidural or drug-free? What positions? Water birth? And those are just the most obvious decisions you can make. You can also have preferences about exactly what procedures you want performed on your child and when, who will be in attendance, how often you’ll have your cervix checked, whether or not to eat the placenta…the list goes on and on. Admittedly these are important decisions, but I developed some decision fatigue during this pregnancy (which is part of why the process of choosing names has been so hard) and in the end, I decided not to set my mind on any of these details, because I didn’t want to get my hopes up and be disappointed when things went awry.
Part of this has to do with the fact that I am already not going to get the perfect birth. Because twins are higher risk, because they might be sharing a placenta, and because my husband travels for 3-4 days at a time twice a month, we decided to go with a scheduled C-section rather than trying a vaginal delivery. To be honest, I still question this choice on an almost daily basis, because there’s something so strong and primal about a woman pushing a baby out, and I would like to share this experience that so many women have had throughout history. Though I know C-sections have their own challenges and I will definitely have my share of pain to bring these kids into the world, somehow I still find myself feeling a bit wussy for taking this option, even though it makes a lot of sense in this situation. About a third of births in the US are C-sections now, and something about that just rubs me the wrong way…maybe it’s the fact that they can CHARGE so much more for a C-section. Anyway, I digress.
But the fact remains that right now our only “birth plan” is to schedule a C-section between 37 and 38 weeks and show up on time. I do have access to excellent medical care in Saudi Arabia, but there are still some cultural differences that give me the impression that I probably wouldn’t be able to have all my birth wishes come true here, regardless. They just don’t have the same concept of “the customer is always right.” From what I have heard, hospital staff tend to jump to medical intervention fairly quickly, prefer back labor to any other position, and would probably look at me if like I was a crazy person if I asked to take my placenta home with me in a cooler full of ice. So, I’m willing to go with the flow and assert myself if needed, of course, but not be that mom bossing nurses around with a birth plan a mile long.
A good friend of mine here gave birth just a couple of weeks ago, and things didn’t go according to plan. After 25 hours of labor and 2 hours of pushing, she was told she needed an emergency C-section. That meant she was put under general anesthesia, and her husband wasn’t allowed to be in the room with her. Neither of them heard their daughter’s first cries or saw her very first moments earth-side, and the disappointment of this has made it so she still can’t talk about the birth without crying. Of course, they were thrilled to go home with a beautiful, healthy baby, and that’s what matters at the end of the day, but the birth did not live up to expectations. I very much want to avoid this kind of traumatic experience so I can enjoy my sons’ birth as much as possible. I may not be able to push them out, but being conscious during the birth seems like a worthy goal.
And yes, even our nice little plan of a scheduled C-section could go out the window if the babies decide to make an early entrance, which is certainly a possibility any time now (I’m almost 34 weeks!!). But, again, what control do I really have? Maybe birth is just the first parenting challenge, and one meant to teach you that life with kids rarely, if ever, proceeds exactly as you envisioned.
