March 23, 2009
More women — and their physicians — are trending these days toward Caesarian Section. The father of the gentle birth movement — Dr. Frederick Leboyer — warns against this. His new book is called THE ART OF GIVING BIRTH: WITH CHANTING, BREATHING, AND MOVEMENT.
I put on the CD, a rolling pattern of tambura music, and read Dr Leboyer’s book. He decries Western methods. Don’t lie down on a bed, he says. No drugs. The baby’s first gaze should connect with the mother. The baby decides when to be born.
Ah! Now he’s got my attention. Both my sons arrived ten days late. I changed doctors and hospitals — choosing The Birth Home — to avoid having a C-Section. My first labor began on Tuesday, January 24th and ended Thursday, January 26th — 42-hours. I walked up hills and down — as Dr Leboyer advises — I sang, I danced, took a warm bath, I even had sex, to stimulate birth contractions. Finally, the midwife took me to the hospital. Pitocin gave me convulsions, and they raced to stop the drip. They gave me a local, and hooked up a mirror so I could watch my baby being born.
I watched the doctor slice open my belly and pull out my first son. My baby was furious! His first sounds were like an old man’s anger — and a few seconds later, the sound broke, and now he sounded like a baby. I didn’t get to gaze in my baby’s eyes, and begged to have him on my chest, before they whisked him away. He was blue. When he was returned to me, he had pinked up, and we got to know each other while nursing. I had adored being pregnant, and I was blue after the delivery. Athletic and fit though I was, and having desperately tried to change my premonition about the C-section, I couldn’t understand why he had to be born this way — mostly, I felt a loss of connection with him. I nursed him for eleven months, and I carried him around all the time despite my husband’s consternation, but we regained that closeness.
My second son was also ten days late. I was told that very few doctors would even entertain the notion of VBAC — vaginal birth after C-section. Fortunately, I had one of those doctors. There were 28-hours of labor — and again I walked and sang and bathed, got on all fours as Leboyer advises, and everything we could think of.
Finally, my doctor came in wearing his surgical gear, the gurney just behind him. I saw what was at stake, and I said “I want to try one more time.” The doctor agreed. I focused, bearing down, my feet bruising the upper chest of my midwife as I pressed into her. Drugless, I connected with the baby soul inside, telling him with my mind that he had to be born now. I felt a shift, and heard a whoosh — and he was born. His tiny chin had been caught on my pelvic bone, and at the last instant, the doctor said, he shifted. My baby and I gazed at each other. VBAC — a victory! He was nine pounds and a half ounce. And yellow — but then he pinked up, too.
In his book, Leboyer picks apart the birth stories told by women attempting his gentle births — with chanting, breathing, and movement. I don’t know what he would say about mine. I figure it was fate, the way my sons were born. I won’t speak of their life struggles — which is their business — only to say that I can see our birth struggles represented in our lives together.
And, I tell you this — if you are pregnant, and considering a C-Section, I would strongly advise you against it. The C-Section was a painful ripping apart for my first son and me. The natural birth unifies the mother and baby. Connecting in spirit with my second son, feeling the shift to freedom, and hearing the whoosh to his birth was one of the most exhilirating moments in my life.
