Monday
Feb072011
Monday Open Thread
Monday, February 7, 2011 at 8:10AM
Today’s open thread is hosted by Philosoraptor.
What are you and Philosoraptor contemplating today? If the answer is “nothing”, we can just talk about old SNL skits, your pregnancy, your kids and whatever random stuff you want.
Reader Comments (41)
Just pondering, although I don't necessarily buy into numerology, whether being born earlier than nature intended because of labor induction or a scheduled cesarean messes up one's life path.
can I just rant for a sec? I have a lot of pregnant friends right now. 1 is being induced a week early because "it fits into her schedule better" (this is her second child.) the other one is having a scheduled c-section because her first ended in a section. UGH
I had a friend who scheduled a RCS because her first labor had been a horrible induced 2 day affair that ended in a c/s. I thought, OK, I would not make that same decision (I'd go for the VBAC and take my chances), but I see where she is coming from. Anyway, she scheduled the RCS for 39 weeks (as medical professionals often recommend) after having gone past 42 weeks with her first child. As you might expect, the 39-weeker had wet lungs, was in the NICU for days, and still seems delayed 6 months out.
Another friend had induced labors exactly on her due date with both children. Her doctor said, "Nothing good ever happens after your due date. Babies just get bigger."
Very frustrated with medical professionals over situations like that.
I am curious if any of you who believe strongly that being born un-medicated is the best way to enter the world have thought about this when it comes to end of life. I understand the compassionate argument about being in pain, and "dying in one's sleep" sounds like the best way to go but what about being drugged out on morphine. Do you think it is as important to be conscious at the moment of death as it is to be clear at the moment of birth.
Does anyone else think about this?
KK, I think when people schedule for good bazi, the idea is that certain days are more auspicious than others so you want to make sure you get the baby to enter the world on that day. But as you note in your second comment, it's not terribly auspicious to be born before you're ready and have to spend a week in the NICU.
Amber, it's too bad to hear about shortening gestation time by a week because of convenience. Hopefully they've both been presented with risks and feel they're making the best decision for themselves and their baby.
week in NICU= bad bazi
I just ran laps in a hotel parking lot in Atlanta. It was only about 5.78% as cool as doing donuts at 50 mph in parking lots when I was 15.
Kim, I have thought about that before. My MIL died of cancer at home with the family, and we had someone by her bedside the whole time. At some point, a few days before her death, she had trouble communicating with us but seemed to want to tell us something important and then quickly faded into a sort of coma for several more days. We were pretty sure she was in some pain from bone metastases, because she had been before that, so we gave her the most frequent dose of narcotics that we were authorized by her hospice doctor to give. It has always bothered me that she really wanted to tell us something and could not get it out. She did eventually die during a visit from her childhood friend who was a priest.
I think I would want meds if I was in pain, since it would be pain without a purpose, but to be alert at end-of-life if not. This is an uplifting Monday post, isn't it?
I currently have a doctor that won't induce before 42 weeks, unless there are serious medical complications. What is a due date? It is not a date set in stone by which a child must be born! It is just a date they estimate you should have your child around. I hate that doctors start pushing women to have inductions to early -- but on the flip side it is our responsibility to not just listen to a doctor because they have some fancy initials after their name. We are supposed to know our bodies and do our research. The sad thing is that doctors are getting their way more and more because women are not educating themselves. And when you do ask them questions they act as if you are questioning God Himself. Silliness.
Tomorrow is my "due date" for my 3rd child. It is SO nice to have an OB that supports me and my right to experience childbirth in all of its intended glory.
Just wanted to mention that although it only occasionally itches and never hurts, my c/s scar didn't exactly "fade". It's still a lovely hot pink color on my very pale skin. Been five years, I'm guessing this is as faded as faded gets. My stretch marks are kind of nice and silvery though, I don't really mind those as much.
/TMI
If one more random person calls me super brave or crazy for having a home birth I might just scream, or punch them, or both. Really, it's not the actually words that bother me, it's how these people say it. The words are either dripping with disdain and contempt or they actually do look at me like I am some psycho and they want to call the child police on me. A lady in the store the other day seemed particular horrified that I would impede the progress of black women in today's society by birthing the way I did and promoting it.
today's my first appointment with a new practice -- one of only 2 obstetric practices in the county where I live. This one does offer midwives and I'm planning on sticking to that side but I am worried because the head of OB at the local hospital, one that has been in the news lately because of a ban on birth photographry (google Meritus in Hagerstown, MD), basically went on record as saying that they only practice defensive medicine and that their main goal is to not get sued. I'm worried. I'm actually hoping that the appointment today goes badly so I can go home in tears and convince my husband that I need to have a home birth. Anyway. Thanks for letting me vent.
By the way, I love the philosoraptor.
"impede the progress of black women in today's society"??!! That is one of the weirder arguments I've heard someone make! I'm just waiting to start getting flak for our homebirth plans. I'm sure my scheduled-section-breastfeeding-is-"icky" SIL will have oodles of things to say about it, if not to me, than to her brother (my husband) and certainly to other moms at church behind my back. 'Cause that's how she rolls. It's a real blast.
Thanks for the response. It is a pretty deep question to ponder, "Pain without a purpose" Just like a baby at birth, your MIL could not communicate at the end (my Mom died the same way and it has bothered me too) so we can't have any input from their point of view. Actually I find these big questions to be quite uplifting. It is one of the gifts of being human that we wonder about those things that we have no knowledge of.
Oh hey, here's a post on Rixa's birth plan. I love it to pieces. http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-birth-plan.html
@ Darlene - I have heard that many times from women in the black community. There is this thought process that better, newer, shiny, is best. Of course this is NOT how the whole community feels, but I run into it a lot. I get much more static, if you will, from women of color that I birth the way I did and promote the birth practices I do, than I have from other races. I particularly love it (sarcasm here) when I'm told I am being negatively influenced by the white people in my life and that I should leave this home birth stuff to the white people.
Thanks for hosting all the licensure/certification talk this last week, Jill. I'm not the first to say it made my head hurt, but gave me a lot of fodder for thought. There is SO much I don't know or understand, and being reminded of that is always valuable.
Philosoraptor and I are contemplating the wisdom (or not, I'm leaning toward not) of conceiving general women's health as being pre-, post-, or interconceptional. This showed up after my academic advisor mentioned that he is not thrilled with this trend, but that saying "pre-conceptional" or "lifecourse" seems to be a pretty good way to get people funding health programs to listen to you at the moment. Relatedly, I suffered some disappointment after finally getting around to reading one of the seminal papers on the 'lifecourse' perspective and finding it was so not what I thought it was (woopsie for dropping that term right into my purpose statement tewwwwtally cluelessly).
Philosoraptor and I are also thinking about what things are hypothetically good candidates for trying to integrate into standard practice hospital births and how we should or should not try to 'sell' them. Seeing as we all agree that hospital birth practices aren't necessarily evidence based, it's going to be a hard sell to use evidence-based arguments to influence OBs and nurses in practice.
Kim-I've also thought about this... and your reflection upon the issue reminds me that I know a woman who is a birth doula AND a nurse in palliative care to accompany the dying. She sees it as very similar and needing good support...
It's hard to know what's right to do for dying people who can't articulate what they need. You don't want them to suffer, but you don't want to silence them either. I think death is probably hard even with lots of painkillers, and there's no way to remove all of the suffering from it, but I'm comfortable with families and hospice nurses using their best judgement.
Actually, I wrote a piece a few years ago about how well hospitals handle death, as compared to birth. My family was treated with respect and compassion when my father passed; and the occasion was treated as one of emotional importance. Whereas birth seems to get none of that emotional component.