Natural Birth

By: Tedi McVea

Photos from our final appointment with our Midwives at Birth Center Stone Oak. 

I knew from the start, I wanted to have a natural birth with a midwife. I had toured a birthing center and paid our deposit just weeks after our positive pregnancy test. I was ready. I knew childbirth would be painful, but my logic was the majority of women in the world deliver babies at home either unassisted or with midwifes. In fact, the US is a minority for choosing to treat childbirth as a medical condition.

I repeated the mantra, “if the majority of women in the world could do it, so could I.....” and I did.  It was beautiful! I will choose a natural birth with a midwife again. The labor and delivery of my little bear, while painful, was my favorite part of pregnancy. Something about it made me so proud. I became utterly aware of the amazing lengths my body could go and what it could achieve.

Interestingly, when I shared my delivery plan with family and friends literally everyone tried to talk me out of it. They discussed how painful birth was, how scary birth can be, how unprepared a midwife was for a medical emergencies and so on.... While all of these concerns were shared with love, no one was asking questions about why I chose this option. I was easily able to dispel many of their concerns, for example:


- Our midwife coordinates with a medical doctor via phone throughout my labor as needed


- The midwife has access to oxygen and IV fluids


- If needed, my midwife would accompany me to emergency delivery (hospital) and assist as needed


- Pregnancy complications may warrant me being required by the midwife to deliver in hospital

and so on.....

But, this same level of scrutiny is not given to hospitals. I guess as a culture, we just assume they are thinking of the birth mom and baby first. Well, here is my truth bomb. Hospitals are expensive businesses to run. Lets say that again, they are a business with lots of overhead: doctors, nurses, equipment, facilities, etc. The quicker they move moms through labor and delivery, the quicker they can fill those beds with a new mommies. They also operate from a position of reducing liability. In a time where litigation is a real issue, hospitals have policies in place to reduce their risk of liability as oppose to individualizing the birthing process to mommy and baby. This manifests itself by using prescriptions to attempt to speed up labor, transitioning to cesarean before trying other alternatives, and forgoing natural treatments such as vaginal massage, oils and lubricants to prevent tearing.

I wanted an individualized birthing process. I didn’t want a plan. My plan was to follow what my body needed and my body needed 25 hours to labor, back pressure, arnica oil, vaginal massage before the last big push, a big bath tub for labor, and lots of eating/drinking throughout.

Every woman has a right to design and choose her own birth plan. A hospital may be part of your plan, an epidural may be part of your plan, Pitocin may be desired to speed up your labor.... My goal in sharing my plan and experience is to remind people that it is not a foreign, crazy, or dangerous choice to deliver at home, in a birth center, or with a midwife. In fact, it is the natural way our bodies were designed to birth babies. My wish is that women are making the choice that best fits them and not choices based on fear, societal pressure or the business plan or defensiveness of a hospital.