The Business of Being Born

Last night, dh and I finished watching The Business of Being Born, a documentary that focused on midwife-assisted deliveries. The natural births they showed were fascinating and very beautiful emotionally because the mothers got to hold their babies immediately afterward. I've had two drug-free deliveries in foreign hospitals (I was doing what it took to avoid the cascade of interventions that often leads to a C-section, and my labors turned out to be a lot less painful than I had expected), and both times the OB-GYNs have forced me into reclining positions against my body's preference just before I pushed my babies out. As a result, both times there was so much stitching to do that I didn't get to hold my babies for some time afterward. I'm really looking forward to giving birth (just 10 weeks away, give or take a week or two) with the assistance of a nurse-midwife this time. I'll still be in a hospital, but I'll finally have a birth attendant who respects the instinctual knowledge of a woman in labor about what she needs to do with her own body. And maybe I'll get to hold my baby right after she comes out!

I highly recommend this documentary to any pregnant woman. One caveat: be careful who you watch it with because ladies delivering babies aren't exactly focused on modesty.