I’m grieved to point out a new and growing genre of mommy blogs: blogs set up specifically to recount the death or serious injury of babies at homebirth and the aftermath for their devastated mothers and families.
I came across a new one yesterday, Dreams That You Dare To Dream.
As the mother explains:
I once dared to dream that I could have a family of my own. I, who was told I could not get pregnant, astoundingly did. My dream was shattered on October 2, 2012 when my daughter died at birth. I now write about how life, love and who I am has changed to my very core.
Every one of the blogs in this new genre are deeply moving. Some are deeply infuriating. This one is particularly eloquent. The author has a gift with words such that her story has a raw immediacy and her pain is almost palpable.
I will remember the way it felt when I delivered my child’s head. The sense of relief knowing that just another push or two and I would to hear my baby cry, hold my baby in my arms, and watch my baby suckle at my breast… I will remember the moments of anguish that followed as my body betrayed both myself and my child. The moments when I was forced to pivot onto my hands and knees in hopes that my body would release and my beautiful child would be born into this world pink and bewildered. I will remember the intense yet defeasible [sic] pushing, my midwife’s profanities, the impenetrable words NINE-ONE-ONE. I will remember the sirens, the voices of the rescue team…
You feel as if you were there with her in the hospital ER:
I will remember the entry to trauma room, the extreme abandon I felt for my own safety, and my focus on my daughter’s wellbeing. I will remember having to deliver my placenta and attempt to be stitched without proper anesthesia all while a curtain was drawn between myself and my daughter…
And you shudder as the mother recalls hearing the words that she (hopefully) was not supposed to hear:
I know the first words I remember after coming out of … anesthesia were from the lips of [my husband’s] mother “She robbed everyone of this baby,” she accused.
Finally, you read how she was forever changed. The person that she was before her daughter died no longer exists.
Looking at the picture of her beautiful daughter you can see how easy it is to imagine that the baby is sleeping, soon to wake crying for her mother’s breast. Instead she will never awaken, a deeply wanted child inadvertently sacrificed to a strange cult-like philosophy that denies that childbirth is inherently dangerous and thereby denies babies the emergency assistance they need when things do go wrong.
Another homebirth, another shoulder dystocia, another dead baby and another homebirth midwife who will never be held accountable for presiding over the preventable death of a beautiful baby girl.
Ricki Lake, Ina May Gaskin, Melissa Cheyney, the Midwives Alliance of North America, the Big Push for Midwifery and other homebirth advocates and organizations have blood on their hands. With the possible exception of Ricki Lake, they know that homebirth increases the risk of perinatal death and they are doing everything in their power to hide that information from women considering homebirth.
When will it stop?
