My Birth Plan

I've been wanting to write Lucia's birth story, not so much to record her specific birth but as a testament to the grace and beauty of a natural birth, a midwife birth, a birth center birth.  I've sat down so many times to write it and I just can't seem to find my way.  She just recently turned three months, and I figure I better write it soon or I might begin to forget. 

I realized that I have already written something that portrays a birth center birth: my birth plan.  The birth center required that I write a birth plan, but left it up to me as to what it would entail.  I searched online for birth plans and printed out a few in checklist form, but when I started working through them with my husband, I realized that most of the options just didn't apply.  I didn't have to say that I didn't want an epidural because it wasn't even available at the birth center.  There was no need to request a room with a bathtub, because all the rooms had one and the midwives encouraged women to labor in them.  My baby would room-in with me, wouldn't be offered formula, and I would be encouraged to breastfeed within the first hour.  Had I been giving birth in a hospital, I would have gone in with a birth plan much like a soldier goes in with armor; it would have functioned as my protection against medicalized birth that I so wanted to avoid.  But since I was birthing at a birth center, I really struggled to write anything at all because I knew that my ideal birth was the birth center's norm.  Here's what I finally came up with:

• I would like a natural birth with as few interventions as possible.  I don’t want to be offered any pain medication unless I first ask for it. 

• For pain relief, I would like to try hydrotherapy, hot/cold therapy, and frequent changes of position.

• If I have back labor pain, I’d like to try sterile water papules. 

• Daddy would like to catch the baby and cut the umbilical cord.

• No eye drops for the baby after birth.

• If any potentially life-threatening  circumstances arise (to mother or baby) at the birth center or after transfer the hospital, please contact a Catholic priest as soon as possible.

Had I birthed at a hospital, my birth center would have been filled with "don't" and "no".  Instead it was mostly suggestions of what I thought might want (which really wasn't necessary; I would have been offered various comfort measures anyway).  Looking back, I should have probably made a more detailed birth plan in case I needed to be transferred to the hospital.  Although in that case, a midwife would have accompanied me and I would have trusted her to keep the birth as close to the natural, birth center ideal as possible.  

My birth plan was followed perfectly.  A few of the items ended up being irrelevant (I didn't have back labor and there was never an emergency situation necessitating a priest), but I'm glad they were there in case I ended up needing them.   Prior to given birth (and since), I've read and heard a lot of negativity about birth plans - that they are unrealistic, or that you might as well not write one, or story after story of women who had a birth plan outlining a natural birth and ended up with a c-section.  So I'm putting this out there to say that there are women who've had their ideal birth too, and if it's possible for them it's possible for you too.   

If you write a birth plan, prepare well for your birth, and still end up having it go a different direction, you'll have the comfort of knowing that you did everything you could and that it just wasn't meant to be.  If you end up with the c-section or epidural you were so trying to avoid because it was absolutely necessary, don't fret.  Just don't end up there because you weren't able to advocate for yourself.  And if you want a natural birth, seriously consider a birth center or home birth.  It makes it a whole lot easier to avoid a medicalized birth if you are in a place where it is neither an option or an expectation.