Imagine for a moment that a new mother has been warned repeatedly not to leave her baby on the bed unattended.
Her “intuition” tells her that the naysayers are wrong and she leaves her baby unattended on the bed, but when she returns to the room she notices that her baby is rolling off the side. She grabs the baby by the arm, preventing the fall to the floor, but breaking the baby’s arm in the process. It takes weeks to heal and the baby is in considerable pain during that time.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]What kind of “God” thinks it’s okay to break a few baby bones so a mother can have the birth of her dreams?[/pullquote]
What would you think if the mother congratulated herself for “proving” that leaving a baby unattended is safe? You’d be disgusted, right?
What would you think if she considered the baby’s broken arm a trivial side effect of her otherwise excellent decision? You’d be horrified, right?
How about if she posted her story to a Facebook group and everyone praised her. You’d think those other women were monsters, right?
But that’s precisely what happened on the Facebook page for Birth Without Fear … except that the mother didn’t ignore advice about leaving her baby unattended on a bed; she ignored medical advice about breech birth.
He was in the worst possible breech position he could be in and I just couldn’t grasp how my beautiful home water birth that I planned and prepared for, for months, was inevitably probably not going to happen. A water birth, after all, was the entire reason we chose to birth this way.
My husband supported me quite well, but felt confused as to why I was so adamant about avoiding going to the hospital for c-section. It would be quick and both of us would be ok and safe. For me, it wasn’t JUST about the c-section though. It was a big part at first, but that wasn’t all. All the hard work he put into paying for me to have the home birth I wanted for our last child, all the planning, the high hopes, the excitement, the peaceful serenity I desired, all being dashed in an instant.
She consulted her midwife:
She had talked with another midwife friend of hers for advice and that sweet midwife encouraged her to remember that “Birth Works.” We talked more about how she still hadn’t heard from God about trying for breech. And how there had been easier breech birth situations arise and she didn’t feel right about it, resulting in the mama transferring to the hospital. But that wasn’t the case with me and Elias. She kept hearing yes. And the encouragement she received from her midwife friend is something I am also forever grateful for. Glory!
What a coincidence! She wanted to have a breech homebirth and “God” told her midwife it would be okay.
She had the vaginal birth that she wanted:
… With his heart rate where it was, there was no waiting. She had to retrieve his other leg, then both arms because they were up by his face. Once that was done I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed. It was so different than my other deliveries because it was just his head I was pushing. Totally different. I started running out of energy because I had no break really since everything started only 30 minutes or so prior. There wasn’t time to wane though. I was dripping sweat. Trying to focus but I had so many things running through my head. I KNEW I had to hurry up but couldn’t figure out why it was taking so long… Finally, though……
He was out.
But he wasn’t breathing. No problem!
Midwife had to breathe for him, remember not uncommon for breech … As I watched this precious woman who was trembling, breathing for my baby-lifeless and laying there a purple color, I prayed. My husband prayed. We spoke to Elias to breathe. It seemed longer than it actually was. We trusted. Scared but trusted we had heard from the Lord about everything we decided to do, so we fully expected life in our child. Strong, smart, healthy and whole..
He started breathing eventually, but he wasn’t exactly whole:
…Turns out his clavicle was broken as well as a fracture of the humerus in his left arm during delivery. How awesome is it, that we actually discussed this BEFORE labor started!? Not even two hours prior to him being born! He was in some pain but is doing great now and completely healed at 3 weeks old.
So her child suffered the agony of not one, but TWO BROKEN BONES. And she thinks it’s awesome that they discussed the possibility and went ahead anyway?
This monster of a mother wasn’t the least bit sorry for her decision. In her mind it was a success!
I still can’t believe I did it. And couldn’t have done it without my midwife. A wonderful woman who takes the time pray and really listen to Him and His will for the births she attends for her clients. I won’t ever be able to tell her enough how much I appreciate it. Nor how much I feel like I owe her for helping me succeed!
What kind of “God” thinks it’s okay to break a few baby bones so a mother can have the birth of her dreams? No God that I recognize from the Judeo-Christian tradition.
And what kind of monsters encourage a mother in these hateful delusions? The monsters who are fans of Birth Without Fear. Of course once they found out that I had sharmed it on my Facebook page, they deleted all mention of the story on the Facebook page and blog. Turns out that perhaps they weren’t so proud of her after all.
Here’s what I wonder:
What if the trade-off had been that in order to avoid a C-section the MOTHER would have to endure the midwife breaking HER clavicle and HER arm without anesthesia and without pain relief in the weeks that followed?
Who wants to bet that the mother would have opted for the C-section to spare herself the pain that she was happy to let her newborn baby endure?
