Temerity Jane

I need this to go my way.

I don’t have a birth plan. I mean, I do, but it’s not even remotely approaching elaborate enough to be considered a “plan.” I more have a birth “this would be nice, if it could happen this way,” than a birth plan.

It’s not that I don’t think birth plans are important. They are. If you want things to go a certain way, the best method for ensuring that they go that way is to let everyone involved know the plan.

It’s important to be flexible as well, though, I think. I feel like the more detailed a plan is, the more things that just won’t be able to go according to that plan, and things not going according to plan is a MAJOR STRESS in my life. So. Small plan, less chance for things to go wrong.

And I want to say again, there is nothing wrong with making a plan – I’m saying that both for me and for people who make more elaborate plans, and I’m saying it TO you people who shake your head and laugh at the idea of plans and say, “Oh, nothing is going to go the way you think it will.”

Shut up, that’s an asshole thing to say, especially because you yourself probably had a plan before your first birth as well. Quit being so goddamned smug.

Anyway, my birth, “this would be nice, if it could happen this way,” is pretty simple. I am so lucky in that I really like my OB, and his methods and ideals fall right in line with mine. He told me at my first appointment something along the lines of, “This is all you guys. I’m just here to supervise, just in case.” He likes to brag about his “no forceps in over 10 years” stat. He doesn’t… y’know… cut. Basically, I like the way this guy operates, and that has a lot to do with how vague the plan is.

In short, it goes as follows: I am open to any necessary medical intervention, including induction, c-section, etc., but would prefer to avoid all intervention if possible. Also, epidural the shit out of me, please.

Having such a great doctor makes it easy to have such a laid back plan – if he says “Ok, c-section,” I know he is not saying it lightly. He doesn’t get involved unless he MUST, which means that should he indicate that some intervention is necessary, I can believe immediately that it is a medical necessity, or he would not do it.

So! That’s really nice for me! Of course, there are other factors that go into making it such a simple plan – I’m just not the type for home births, or water births, or natural births, or silent births, or anything like that. If you have very clear ideas on the specific method in which your child will be delivered, you’d probably need a more detailed plan.

With my birth “this would be nice, if it could happen this way,” in place, I am really pretty stress-free about the birth itself. I mean, I don’t expect to remain stress free, because can I remind you that should all go according to my plan, the entire baby will come right out of my lady area, and that does sound stressful. But I’m not worried, at the moment.

Not worried about the birth, at least. In the last week or so, I have been absolutely terrifying myself with message boards and blogs and My OB Said WHAT?? about what will happen after the birth.

My plan for after the birth is not so much like my “this would be nice, if it could happen this way” birth plan as it is an inflexible treatise on how MY BABY will be handled and is basically a complete 180 from the “whatever you say, Doctor” attitude of birth to a feral, teeth-bared, “MY WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!” shriek.

Don’t get me wrong. None of what I want is too “out there,” in terms of accepted health and welfare and general okay standards of baby care. But I am about zero percent concerned about not getting the birth I want, and one skrillion percent concerned – pre-emptively panicked, actually – about this post-birth stuff not going according to plan.

Everything I want is pretty simple – don’t take the baby away for a bath until we get some time for her to feed. Babies are often very awake and ready to eat when they’re born, and then sleep a long recovery sleep after their first bath. It’s important (she says, having read as much on the Internet) to establish a good latch while the baby is all into it. I just want me and Phil and the baby, dirty or not, to be left alone to handle this. Additionally, I do not want the baby to be given a pacifier or supplemented with any formula. I want to see a lactation consultant as soon as possible and as often as needed.

(Note – none of this is meant to be anti-formula or anti-pacifier and only applies to the time in the hospital, with the goal of the best start for breastfeeding possible, NOT for the goal of making someone who read this post on the Internet feel like shit for giving their baby formula or a pacifier. One of the first things we bought was a pacifier. I promise to give her a pacifier if she likes them. Just not right away.)

Like I said, this stuff, along with one or two other small things, really isn’t that out there. I know that this stuff is possible. Assuming (knock on wood) that we have a healthy baby, there is no reason that things can’t go this way.

But there have been other women – like, a billion of them – who have had the same ideas, or even less specific ideas, who have just not had things go their way after the birth, at all. Phil says I need to stop reading these websites and blogs and forums and stuff, but one, I can’t, and two, I don’t really want to because I feel like I need to know what could happen.

Like nurses who pressure new moms to allow formula supplements because of not enough wet diapers or because of low birth weight or because her milk hasn’t quite come in yet or just because it’s what’s done. And there are the new parents, not really sure if they want to supplement but feeling like they don’t have a choice because hey, they’re not the professionals.

Or worse, stories of mothers who have been told that if they don’t allow a formula supplement, they would be discharged and their baby would stay in the hospital and there’s nothing they could do about it.

Or even just hospitals or a specific nurse who isn’t especially supportive of breastfeeding and keeps pushing for formula. Or someone just gives her formula or a pacifier in the nursery, without even asking us.

Or I guess we could be told that it’s hospital policy that the baby be taken and bathed immediately, even though that’s not what we want. Or something not even hospital-related could happen, and I could feel pressure from my mom, who will be in the waiting room, to be let in immediately to see the baby instead of taking the private time that we want to have after the birth.What if I have a c-section and they let someone aside from Phil hold the baby before I do?

I don’t know. A billion different things could happen. As you can see, I’ve put at least a basic amount of research into what I think is best and what I want, but Phil and I will both be brand new parents and kind of unsure, even if we have researched the hell out of something. And my mom, while she will be there to be supportive, she hasn’t had a baby in over 20 years and is strongly of the “listen to the professionals” mentality, and it’s not like I plan to NOT listen to the professionals, but I also know what’s necessary and what isn’t in a normal situation, and have just now heard too much about things going so, so, so wrongly because it’s hard to insist on what you want when your baby is all new and experienced people are telling you that you MUST do the opposite.

Am I would up over nothing? I’m sure some of you think so, but I don’t. I think the fact that I’m so “whatever” about how the birth goes should contrast with how incredibly firm I am on the idea of how the baby will be treated after the birth to show that this is something I am taking extremely seriously. And as certain I am of how perfectly reasonable my requests are now, I don’t know how certain of what’s best I will be once she’s here. Or worse, maybe I’ll still be certain of what’s best, but my support people will be urging me to go against it and I’ll cave in and never forgive myself. Or maybe hospital staff people will just laugh at me and do whatever the hell they want.

The point is, I have worked myself into quite a state over all these “what ifs,” to the point where I lay awake at night and think about it, and spend a ridiculous amount of time reading stories where things went right and stories where things went wrong and stories where things went WAY WRONG and stories about how to make sure that you’re taken seriously. I think that’s one of my biggest concerns, being taken seriously. I don’t really know anyone among us who feels truly like an “adult,” especially in the face of what we would consider to be real authority, and I am paranoid about my non-adultness showing right through and being “tut-tutted” off as someone who doesn’t know anything about anything and aren’t your little fairy tale plans cute?

I don’t think that this stress will end up going away until all is said and done, because nothing can be done to ensure that things will go the way I want them to. I can explain my plan to everyone involved, I can have “no pacifiers, no formula” written on the baby’s chart, I can take every precaution necessary. What makes me so frenzied with way early worry is that something will happen despite all those things, something that will either make Phil and I insecure about the choices we’ve made, or something that will be detrimental to the establishment of breastfeeding, or even something that will just plain taint or ruin the experience of those first few days. And you can’t know if that will happen until it does. And it can, or there wouldn’t be so many stories about it happening.

So. I really need for this to go my way. And there’s just no way to guarantee that it will. This is why my strong, beautiful, blessed-by-pregnancy fingernails no longer exist.