Let me tell you one thing that has truly blown me away, though about birth….whenever I think about it. Whenever I stop and watch a woman in labor, or pushing, or struggling with needing a c-section, and I think about who they really are. I feel Heavenly Fathers love for them so intensely it amazes me. He loves these women who choose to sacrifice and experience the difficulties and trials of birth and motherhood, yet it is up to us to find what they all mean and the joy that can come from that.

Go with what Heavenly Father tells you you need to do…he knows and he loves you.

In my case, a home birth was not an option (a good midwife would have transferred me immediately if I had started at home – she was footling breech … would have been disastrous to deliver vaginally). I’m not yet sure what I’m supposed to have learned from my experience – that will come with time, I’m sure. I am disappointed, but I have to believe it happened for a reason … babies don’t turn at 39 weeks (especially 9 pound babies). I can’t be disappointed that I am healthy and my beautiful baby girl is healthy.

I guess the point of my super long comment is that this is a spiritual experience and the Lord is in charge. It is so inspiring to read you ponder and pray about this decision.

Good luck to you – I hope your birth is beautiful!

I read it with the tense ancticipation of another heated debate starting!

I was all set to have my first at home. I was and am very pro-homebirth. My Senior thesis was on midwifery and the advent of forceps to the medical world. I responded deeply to A Midwife’s Story by Penny Armstrong and Sheila Kitzinger’s Homebirth and Giving Birth (How it Really Feels).

But….it felt wrong. We did not have peace when we thought and prayed about the whole experience. Maybe it was the fact that we lived 45 minutes from a hospital or that my mother had a history of hemorhaging after birth. Fortunately, we were blessed with a wonderful birth experience thanks to a doctor with the soul of a midwife and a very tiny, patient oriented hospital and loving nurses. Had we not had that combo, my 36 hour labor and 4 hours of pushing would have ended in a c-section. The nurses kept telling me how lucky I was to have birthed there, because the outcome would have been much different elsewhere.

My husband teases me that nothing in my birth plan worked out, except that we had a wonderful experience.

Which is what it’s all about.

All four of my children were born in a hospital, with a doctor and without any pain medication. No epidurals, no nothing. I have no regrets and although labor and delivery was painful, I have wonderful memories of the strength and power that I felt as I delivered my babies. I felt strong and dare I say, proud of myself for accomplishing something hard.

This was the right choice for me, my husband and our babies.

There are so many issues related to parenting and motherhood specifically, that put undue pressure on mothers. It drives me crazy. We need to trust our instincts, and our divine nature and do what is best for us. I felt a ton of pressure to breast feed which didn’t work out well for any of my children, and felt guilt when I chose bottle feeding after a few weeks of struggling with nursing. Now I look back, and wish that I had felt comfort in choosing what was best for me and my babies.

I also felt pressure to lay my babies to sleep on their backs, but when my son was born and wouldn’t sleep well on his back, and slept like an angel on his tummy, again, the guilt and worry crept in to my head.

We mothers are given special gifts to discern what is right for our families, we need to trust those instincts. Heavenly Father has given them to us for a reason.

(Sorry for the ridiculously long comment)
Love,
Marilyn

I was pretty young when I had my first child and my parents lived a couple thousand miles away from me. I lived in a town of 50 people and had a neighbor who told me that I would resent my children for the the rest of their lives from the pain I would experience giving birth. Fortunately I had a lovely “Norman Rockwell” looking country doctor who had 7 children himself (he had a tie that proudly proclaimed all their names.) He taught me that pain is relative and that the most I would probably suffer severe pain during childbirth was hours in comparison with some people who have chronic pain for their entire lives. He taught me how to actually fall asleep during the pain of a contraction and how to help my body through the process of childbirth (I lived too far out in the country for childbirth classes.) He even stayed home from vacation because he knew I would deliver my first baby during that week. He stayed until the delivery was over then went on his family vacation. I loved him like a father. I didn’t have anything but a local anethestic and have nothing but sweet memories of it all, and I don’t resent my children in the least. In fact I couldn’t love them more if I had experienced no pain at all.

I think the most important thing is that you have someone you trust and can communicate with to help you through this beautiful process that is birth.

God bless you in this delightful journey.

In fact, maybe that’s why we cling to our own familiar way–because that’s where (and how) we received our own assurances.

My delivery stories, too personal for a blog comment, have been marked by lessons from my Heavenly Father, who knows me personally. Yours will be too.

Thank you for sharing your journey and your faith with us.

P.S. I have learned an important spiritual lesson from an epidural, and it has nothing to do with a microwave. But I think you should refer to the eleventh Article of Faith, because in it we claim the privilege to act according to the dictates of our own conscience–and allow others the same privilege. Let her give birth how, where and with whom she may!