It's funny how something as basic and pure as giving birth could be so political. I don't really understand how this came to be, but it sure is.

When I was in nursing school I did a rotation on a labor and delivery unit. I got to assist with births and coach women through their labors. Every woman was different in her experience, preparedness, and expectations. Because my school has a large midwifery program, there were several aspiring midwives in my own little group.

I think it is human nature to affix themselves to a political agenda when new to an idea. Before the concept of issue X becomes complicated by extenuating circumstances, when it is still a simple dichotomous situation with either right or wrong as the options, it is very easy to decide which side you chose to identify with. My classmates were wholly in line with natural childbirth, and were most excited about home birth. They wanted no interventions, no medication, nothing but the mother and her womb working away to the delivery of a perfect baby. Oh, excuse me, I said delivery. Even the word "delivery" enraged these students, because (as they put it) nobody delivers anything in a birth. A mailman delivers mail, but a mother births her baby.

These students would use this agenda to try to influence the laboring mothers. They would even go so far as to tsk tsk when a woman asked for epidurals, and become incensed when complications led to cesarian sections. I should note that only one of the midwifery students in my program actually had ever given birth to a child herself.

I never really thought about this stuff before I myself became pregnant. I never thought about how those poor women laboring away probably had given things like pain medication quite a bit of thought and had come to a reasonable decision for themselves. After hours of labor, they really didn't need a young, fresh-faced, inexperienced nursing student trying to convince them against getting epidurals in their time of real need. What were we thinking?

So now I am pregnant, and there is this class of people who are very convinced that doing something radical like having our baby in a hospital is clearly a bad idea. Apparently, I am supposed to pay extra cash to find a midwife who will do my birth in a birth center (or better yet, at home) without any medications. Because, you know, medications are horrible. I am supposed to refuse to use the medical plan my school provides because they don't have any midwives who wish to do births under their policies, and only have obstetricians doing the births.

But see, I am a child of free medicine. I've never had choices before. I don't really have choices now, by the way. I could chose to do a home birth, but I actually am comforted by the idea of having a safety net in the hospital. Sure, I would like to be one of those people who has the confidence and wherewithall to give birth at home and then do the laundry an hour later, but I am not that person. I am a delicate flower. I don't like pain. I am a fighter, but I also have limits.

I used to be really excited about rock climbing. I bought a harness, I took rock climbing classes, and I even went on a long rock climbing trip in college. The same thing happened to me every time I was up on the wall. I would get about five or six feet high and start to panic. I would cry. I would shake. I would freeze and be unable to up or down. The other people climbing or waiting for their turn would urge me to keep going but I would cry and shake until they let me come down. I was ashamed by this for a long time until I realized that I just wasn't put on this earth to be a rock climber. There is a part of me that likewise fears I will get to the transition part of birth and panic. I need to have more than just a team of well-meaning people holding the ropes for me, cheering me on. I need to know that I can fall back on technology if need be.

I understand the risks and benefits of natural childbirth. I am wholly committed to doing what I can to have a natural childbirth. That is the goal. I know how pain medication slows births and leads to complications, and complications lead to problems with the baby. I know these things, people. But I know my limits too. So don't judge me. I won't judge you, I will even admire your strength and conviction and confidence. I have confidence in other places. I don't need birth to be a trial by fire. I just want a healthy baby and for the experience to be relatively free of trauma. Nobody can promise that, no matter what side of the issue you identify with.

And besides, when you give birth at home, who cleans up all the blood and crap that goes along with it? blech. like I said, I am a delicate flower.