Wednesday, August 13th, 2008...4:43 pm
#52: Natural Childbirth
The Best Parent Ever is better than you because they birthed their child in such a better way than you, which is why your child will fail at everything they will ever do.
But not really. All your children will grow up to hate you by the time they are teenagers, whether they were expelled into a birthing tub surrounded by scented soy candles and dolphin-brained midwives, or ripped out in a morphine-soaked haze from your sliced-open abdomen like a bag of Butterball turkey giblets. But don’t tell that to the Best Parent Ever, who will insist their childbirth technique (so often free of medication, epidurals, and even medical professionals) was the best thing they could have ever done for their future prodigies.
| Childbirth has become such an overly-produced and overly-commodified event (from both natural and “unnatural” proponents) that people have lost sight of how basic and simple an act it is. Little Baby Jesus got crapped out in a manger, for Christ’s sake, and He did okay, right? So what are you saying? That your baby’s more important than Christmas? Natural, epidural, C-section ? It all works out in the end. |
So take that, MacDuff, “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.” You may have killed MacBeth in a Caesarean-enriched rage, but Jesus is better than you, and so is the Best Parent Ever. Not only does the Best Parent Ever shamelessly boast about their natural childbirth experiences, but they are more adept at trawling Wikipedia for Shakespeare references like the one above. And that doth be why they be most bett’r than thou.
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28 Comments
August 13th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Shoot, mine came out naturally watching baby einstein with a cell phone.
Only the best.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
OMG! Beeps, that has to be your best post yet!!! I love the picture!! ROFL Good job!
August 13th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
hahaha!! i love it. who cares how the kid gets here as long as it gets here.
love the picts cept for the epidural one should not be in a CD but in a store brand disposable 😉
hehe
August 13th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
that …yup…. that did make me laugh so hard I peed myself…
thank sweet baby jesus in the manger that I came home for lunch…
August 13th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
“Little Baby Jesus got crapped out in a manger, for Christ’s sake, and He did okay, right? So what are you saying? That your baby’s more important than Christmas?”
OH. MY. GOD. I am laughing so hard the site from my first c-section is hurting!!!
This one is truly the BPE…
And that means –
Best. POST. Ever.
hahahahahahahaha!!! Made my day.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Thanks for the advice. I’m drawing a warm bath, phoning my midwife and lighting aromatherapy soy candles as I type this. 😀
August 14th, 2008 at 5:04 am
OMG, I LOVE this post! I have two friends who have done “natural” childbirth (as opposed to the extremely unnatural hospital where I had my child). I’m sorry, I like my baths for BATHING, not for delivering humans and afterbirth into the world.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
omg…You are hilarious…AHAHAHAHAH look at the epidural baby!!!! I cant stop laughin for real
August 14th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
This justifies my idea of dressing my baby up as the Incredible Hulk for Halloween. Since I had an epidural, my baby already looks just like him!
August 15th, 2008 at 2:19 am
The richest comment I have heard on this topic is that children born to mothers with epidurals are more likely to become addicts. So now people can get really get on their high horse, ‘At least I didn’t do anything that would cause *drug addiction*.” Eyes staring down nose.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I agree–this has got to be one of the top “ways I am better than you” things. I’ll say it over and over–I loved my epidural and I plan on getting another one at any time I birth a child. The point is to come home with a healthy baby and a family that is not unnecessarily stressed, not to be a superhero of pain endurance. Great post!
August 16th, 2008 at 12:26 am
LOL I had 2 homebirths and am planning a third. Both were waterbirths although I’m not sure the second truly counts as one as I was on hands and knees so the important part was technically NOT in the water as she was born. Whatever. I thought the post was hilarious! The picture just makes it.
Everybody knows that natural birth gets you the Gerber baby but if you succumb to the evildural your spawn will look like Frankenstein and The Hulk shared a drunken night in the back of a ’57 Chevy.
Choose wisely ladies!
August 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
this could be your best post yet!
it made me laugh out loud….. and
i am still chuckling about it!
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 am
Well… It does bring up an interesting topic. I think it’s a shame that so many people are so opinionated about what is the “right way” to bring a child into this world… I myself had a natural birth and don’t find anything wrong with it… But I was also open to an epidural if I needed one. I think it’s sad that there are so many judgemental people out there that would make someone feel bad about having an epidural vs. not. Whatever the case, we are all stronger women for giving birth and bringing a child into this world, however they were brought here!
August 24th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Friggin’ love your posts. Grazie. You need to look into a book deal. I was one of those BPE Natural Birth Freaks until they ripped my son from my morphine-laden womb. Amen sister. Amen. I can worship at the alter of BPE guilt free… oooh, another topic???
August 25th, 2008 at 2:30 am
You mean there something wrong with the pic of the epidural baby….that’s what my baby looked like when she came out….that’s not normal….shiiiiit!
September 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
best one yet.
All three of my kiddos are epidural hulk babies, and I love them and the epidural man that was at the hospital. My SIL, however, has the “natural” gerber baby and I hear how awful my birth must have been. sheesh. but reality is, her kids are the little heathens and mine are angelic
September 14th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Everyone should read The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
My mom was so drugged up, she woke up when I was in second grade or so, according to her. I came out all right. Well, except for that chocolate addiction…
Me, I adopted my kids, so I am such a terrible mommy – I didn’t go through childbirth at all! I outsourced the whole process. I had no control over prenatal nutrition, playing Mozart in the womb, or making sure the children were born in a water bath in a light blue room under a full moon. Bad mommy!
Of course, my kids came out fine, but I’m sure that was just a 1 in a million fluke.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Real mommies make great posts like this. Keep them coming!
October 13th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I gave birth to 3 wonderful children, all came in less than 15 minutes, and I experienced no pain at all.
As a matter of fact it was quite joyful!
I created the Zero Pain Child Birth Blueprint. You can read about it here:
http://www.scottchopchop.com/zpb
or here
http://sites.google.com/site/zeropainchildbirth/
Sophia Nelson
October 27th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Hey Ladies. I am by no means knocking anyone that had an epidural. So please do not think that I am calling you any less of a woman. With that said…
I had natural childbirth. It lasted 24 hours. It was long, hard work. It felt like really bad menstrual cramps coupled with constipation pains. It is not impossible and natural childbirth does not make me a superwoman or have some crazy high threshold for pain. I am just a regular woman that made the best decision for me. More than anything, it is hard work and, epidural or not, it will be the most exhausting thing any one will ever go through.
Since my mom had 5 kids naturally (4 at home with the 5th induced for medical reasons) I knew it could be done. After researching the risks associated with epidurals (increased migraines, paralysis, life long pain at the epidural site, etc) I decided to sign up for a childbirth class. I was turned on to the book Natural Childbirth the Bradley Method (completely opposite and with greater success rates than Lamaze). I took a 12 week Bradley class (for a total of 24 classroom hours and at least double that many at-home hours of reading and practicing techniques). It was great and I recommend taking this class to everyone – whether you are planning on going natural or not. The classes were very informative. My husband and I felt very educated about the whole process of pregnancy – what to eat when you are pregnant, getting exercise when you are pregnant, how different vitamins and minerals helped your body cope with all of the changes, etc – The whole process of childbirth – what is happening and why, good positions to get into to make labor easier, how breathing naturally helps labor progress and reduces pain, etc – And postpartum – what procedures the hospitals do to your baby that you may not know about and why they do them, etc.
Again, it was extremely informative and the best $300 I ever spent. It really reduced my anxiety and my husbands anxiety about the whole thing. I knew that what was happening with my body was for a reason and it helped me to cope with all the pain and fear or childbirth. By the time that I even considered getting an epidural I was in transition and was just minutes away from holding my baby in my arms.
The biggest reason that I decided to go natural was not for this great idealized reason of it being healthy for my baby or the fears that my baby will become an addict. No, it was simply that I was fearful of the “Cascade of Intervention” that can happen with epidurals. See, a woman goes to the hospital, they give her an epidural to relax her. Now, she is too relaxed and so labor has slowed or stopped, so they give petocin (sp?) to speed it up. Now, it is coming too fast so they give something else to slow it down… and so on and so on until the only option left is a c-section because the baby and mom are so stressed. I live in Kentucky and the rate of c-section is 1 in 3 compared to the national rate of 7-12%. I feared that unless I insisted on no intervention, I , too, would end up with a c-section.
Let me make myself clear – C-sections are needed and since my ultimate goal was to have a healthy baby I was willing to have a c-section if it came to that. However, I was damned and determined to reduce my risk (especially in such a high risk state) for the possibility of c-section if I could.
On another note, sometime an epidural can relax a mother just enough so that she is no longer tensing up and her body is fighting against the baby. So, sometimes an epidural is the best thing.
Everyone should look at both sides and decide what is best for them. It does not make you a bad mom because you had an epidural. But it certainly does not make you a bad mom for going natural. The hardest part of my labor was having to hear all the ridicule from the nurses and doctors that criticized me for going natural. The OB that delivered my baby said, while sewing me up, “I bet you wish you had that epidural now.” I was so offended I immediately looked down over the stirrups and said, “As a matter of fact, I am glad I went natural. (I rattled off the risks associated with epidurals)What is it to you?”
Why are so many people so mean and condescending to women who choose to go natural?
November 21st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
LOL True, true.
There are benefits to a natural birth, and there are many downsides to all the medical interventions routinely done in medical births. Did you know that having pitocin and an epidural can eventually lead to a c-section? There are actually good reasons for having as few meds as you can manage.
That said…. so many people take it too far. Your baby won’t be a retard if you have pain drugs while you give birth, and a naturally-born baby who is born on the livingroom rug at home with no doctor or midwife present is not better than every other baby.
November 25th, 2008 at 4:13 am
It’s the C-section babies that come out looking like Gerber babies! The natural-birthed ones always have squished heads, ha ha.
November 26th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I don’t get this pictures, I had the epidural and my son looked just like the natural birth picture. I think us as women should stand together and quit putting eachother down. I will admit I wanted to have my son natural, but my doctor talked me into getting the epidural due to fear of possible complications from a complicated pregnancy. I am so thankful that he did, because sure enough my son got stuck on his way out, and the epidural relaxed me to the point I dialated to 12cm and my son sliped out. I actually enjoyed giving birth.
November 26th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
As a man, I’m not sure that I’m really qualified to truly comment on the pain involved in childbirth.
But, am I wrong to question the mentioning of a pain free, 15-minute childbirth as stated by Sophia Nelson above? Especially when her website is connected to another website stating that you can make $1.2M in 3 months.
I witnessed the birth of my daughter, and I really don’t see any way possible that it could have been painless or taken only 15 minutes. Unless of course my wife had the vagina of a beluga whale transplanted in the place of hers. That might have allowed for a bit more room.