Giving Birth On The Fa.rm

I know that I mentioned in my last post that I have much to report. Before I do that, there is something that I have to write about, as it has been so heavy on my mind.

Last week I was blessed to attend the Par.tner.s In Per.i.natal Conference with my dear friend Carol. We were there attending as a SHARE exhibitor representing our local group "Empty Arms". We were there with lots of information to give, support and listening ears. The response to our presence there was tremendous! Some folks had heard of SHARE some had not, and perhaps for some they had never even heard of stillbirth...or maybe they had only ever heard stories of stillbirth happening in hospital.

I considered that there might be a strong presence of the home.birthing community there, and as it turned out I was right. It's kind of hard to describe how this made me feel (disgusted/pissed off/bitchy/jealous). It was obvious though, after over hearing numerous conversations that these people were absolutely oblivious and naive to anything bad happening during the attempt of a home.birth. To those folks I wanted to scream out loud! (after all my pregnancy had been so perfect, I was a perfect candidate for a home.birth)

For those who have NEVER heard of anything bad happening when it comes to home.birth, lend me your ear, let me tell you a story...it's a long tragic, awful, nightmare of a story. Would you like to hear it?

This conference featured a very well known speaker/advocate (of the home.birthing community), can you take a guess who "she" was? That's a big hint my friend! Well, it was none other than, drum roll please.........In.a M.ay!

I felt pretty sure that I knew just what her speech/talk would be about. Of course home.birth, natural childbirth, and how bad hospitals are for babies and moms. I sat there with my ears open and my eyes glued to her as she spoke passionately but also ignorantly. I could feel my body seizing, and my eyes welling up as she ranted about the ease to give birth that so many woman had found on "The F.arm". Then there was a story that she told of a woman who's labor had been difficult and long:

Here is an excerpt from Carol's blog...as she re-counts the story so well:

"So the story goes like this, she relays it, it is early in the life of her delivering babies, and a mother comes to her with a long and difficult labor, and the baby eventually emerges with the cord wrapped tightly three times around its neck, blue. While efforts are being made to resuscitate the baby, the mother begins to hemorrhage. Ultimately, the baby is resuscitated and the mother's bleeding slows down to a normal rate. Ina explains that everything did end up fine, because she knew what to do. Our friend Ina, in recalling the story, asks, "Who writes this stuff?" Like as if it's just this kind of cool war story to tell, with a happy ending that had nothing to do with really unbelievable timing and luck."

As you might imagine, this story pissed me off. It pissed me off because, well it could have VERY EASILY have been a VERY DIFFERENT outcome. I don't give a flying (excuse me) FUCK if you think that you know what to do. How about the babies cord was wrapped 3 times around the babies neck, AND the cord at some point during that long and difficult labor was compressed...and SHE HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING? That baby would not have survived that labor, then what? Would she be telling everyone in the world how wonderful and "safe" home.birth is then? Remember, when things start to go very wrong during labor, they start to go VERY, VERY wrong VERY, VERY fast. My dead baby, my daughter is proof of this fact.

I am very concerned and skeptical about the truth behind that statistics that she brought to brag about. She did not even mention a hint of fetal loss, and as Carol reminded me, those statistics are 1/100 births. Thousands of births have taken place on The F.arm, so you know that there has been fetal loss. There has to have been, The F.arm is not spared from such tragedy simply because it puts out such a pristine reputation. Why are the losses there not spoken about? Do they not want to scare the home.birthing community as a whole?

Did you know that I.na M.ay herself had a stillborn child? Did you know that she went into labor prematurely while traveling in the caravan on their way to Tennessee?

"It was common knowledge that I.na M.ay – one of Stephen’s two wives – was expecting a baby. The due date was sometime after our anticipated arrival in Tennessee and people were curious to see who would deliver since I.na M.ay had been the midwife for the babies born on the Caravan. But on our second day driving across Nebraska, we pulled off the road surprisingly early in North Platte, parking in a large lot in the early afternoon. This was not the kind of place the state troopers would have arranged for us. Word went around that Ina May had gone into premature labor. Anita was worried; it was way too early.

The next morning there was no routine drivers’ meeting. Instead, someone knocked on the door of our bus and somberly informed us that I.na M.ay’s baby had been stillborn and would be buried there in North Platte after all the legal paperwork had been taken care of. The Caravan would stay put until after that, then would beeline south into Kansas.

We were stunned. Somehow, the good karma of Stephen’s family and the Caravan seemed to have failed. I understood little to nothing about the magic held by the group – I’d naively believed there was such magic and that it would protect us from this kind of tragedy. The death of a newborn was so far beyond my experience and comprehension that I half expected the Caravan to disband or at least regroup under a new mission. But as we gathered with others who’d been with Stephen since the early days of the Class, we found more grounded perspectives.

This was simply the way life was. Death was a certainty for all of us. It came way early for I.na M.ay’s child, but it wasn’t an issue of fairness or deserving or bad magic. It just was. Grief was an inescapable part of life and we would move on. If anyone would understand this, it would be Stephen’s family. We couldn't’ allow ourselves slip too far out into sadness for the loss of one infant because there was so much life still left in the rest of us. Our lesson should be to love and support one another even more, especially the few children who were traveling with us."

The whole post that I excerpted from can be found HERE.

I can't believe that I found this, I mean the irony that I have been experiencing surrounding my "meeting" this woman (will tell you about this in another post) is beginning to really disturb me.

I feel so sad for her baby. Maybe, just maybe her pre-mature labor could have been stopped if she had gone into a hospital? Maybe that baby would not have made a still entrance into this world. I also feel so sad that the caravan just kept on going, literally and emotionally. I have to wonder, did I.na M.ay? Did she allow herself the space to grieve her loss? My hope is that she did, that she allowed herself the space to do so, even if she had to hide it from the others in the caravan.

I also feel that I need to be careful not to judge her about her loss, I want to respect the memory of her child. However, why wouldn't a pregnant mother who has gone into labor too early go to a hospital? Yes, they were on the road, but they had state troopers following and leading them on their way, so perhaps a distress call could have been made? Couldn't something have been done to rush her to a hospital to try to save her baby?

Still, there she was going on and on about all the intense, primal, beautiful and perfect births that take place on the farm. There wasn't even a whisper of fetal death, only the mention of maternal death, because the death of a mother who has given birth is so much easier to digest? WTF?

I feel deeply disturbed and sickened by all of this.

More to come when I can collect my thoughts.