Are you seeing anything here??

I was recently perusing one of my facebook pages and came upon a discussion over the NCB=Cult comparison I had written. Of course, people are offended. One woman stated that she refused to read anything I had to say. Why? She had seen comments I had made (no sharing about what I said, the subject matter, etc).  This leads me to today's post.

At 17 years old, I did my best to have a natural birth. Nurses helped me immensely. However, the labor was very long and I couldn't do it anymore. I was determined to breastfeed and did. My son co-slept. I tried cloth, but not having a washer or dryer cinched that one. He was supplemented around 6 months. Still breastfed to 16/17 months. Next baby- Natural birth (in the hospital), co-sleeping, breastfeeding, cloth, formula supplement at 9 months, still nursed to 18/19 . Next baby- natural hospital birth (had begun researching homebirth with this one), breastfed to 3 months, co-slept. Are you seeing anything here?? 

 I lamented the epidural I had with my oldest and blamed the hospital/nurses for the epidural I felt that I was "forced into" with my fourth. I kicked myself for allowing pitocin with that first labor. I hated that I had had my boys circumsized. I was a non-vaxer. My children were even homeschooled for a bit. I had one awesome homebirth and eagerly awaited my second one. While she was alive, I was proud of myself because I did it!! Are you seeing anything here??

I'm sure you are wondering why I keep asking "are you seeing anything here?". I am asking this question because I want you to see that I was JUST like the rest of the Natural mommy/NCB/homebirthing crowd. I was probably practicing the AP/Natural mommy things when most of the zealous women were children themselves. 

So, ladies, when you are putting me down or bashing me, keep in mind that I've been there. You don't have any special knowledge that I never had. Your behavior and attitudes are the same ones I had in my crunchy days. There are no differences between us, except that I've since buried my baby girl and changed my mind about the militant natural mothering behaviors. My blinders were ripped off. Had I not had the experience I did, I would probably be on the same blogs/pages that you are! I wouldn't be so horrible then, now would I??

Are you seeing anything here??

I was recently perusing one of my facebook pages and came upon a discussion over the NCB=Cult comparison I had written. Of course, people are offended. One woman stated that she refused to read anything I had to say. Why? She had seen comments I had made (no sharing about what I said, the subject matter, etc).  This leads me to today's post.

At 17 years old, I did my best to have a natural birth. Nurses helped me immensely. However, the labor was very long and I couldn't do it anymore. I was determined to breastfeed and did. My son co-slept. I tried cloth, but not having a washer or dryer cinched that one. He was supplemented around 6 months. Still breastfed to 16/17 months. Next baby- Natural birth (in the hospital), co-sleeping, breastfeeding, cloth, formula supplement at 9 months, still nursed to 18/19 . Next baby- natural hospital birth (had begun researching homebirth with this one), breastfed to 3 months, co-slept. Are you seeing anything here?? 

 I lamented the epidural I had with my oldest and blamed the hospital/nurses for the epidural I felt that I was "forced into" with my fourth. I kicked myself for allowing pitocin with that first labor. I hated that I had had my boys circumsized. I was a non-vaxer. My children were even homeschooled for a bit. I had one awesome homebirth and eagerly awaited my second one. While she was alive, I was proud of myself because I did it!! Are you seeing anything here??

I'm sure you are wondering why I keep asking "are you seeing anything here?". I am asking this question because I want you to see that I was JUST like the rest of the Natural mommy/NCB/homebirthing crowd. I was probably practicing the AP/Natural mommy things when most of the zealous women were children themselves. 

So, ladies, when you are putting me down or bashing me, keep in mind that I've been there. You don't have any special knowledge that I never had. Your behavior and attitudes are the same ones I had in my crunchy days. There are no differences between us, except that I've since buried my baby girl and changed my mind about the militant natural mothering behaviors. My blinders were ripped off. Had I not had the experience I did, I would probably be on the same blogs/pages that you are! I wouldn't be so horrible then, now would I??

Women are designed to give birth

I hear this all over the place and decided that I am going to explore it.

If we are "designed to give birth", are we also designed to get pregnant? Are we designed to stay pregnant??

Looks look at a few things here:
A. According to the CDC, about 10% of women suffer from infertility. This means 6.1 million women either cannot conceive or cannot carry a pregnancy.
B. Miscarriage occurs in 20% of pregnancies (this means over 12%).
C. Incompetant cervix occurs in 1% of pregnancies
D. Ectopic Pregnancy occurs in 1 out of 60 pregnancies.
E. Gestational Diabetes occurs in 2-5% of pregnancies, but 7-9% of those with risk factors.
F. HELLP Syndrome occurs in .2 to .6% of all pregnancies.
G. Molar pregnancies occur in 1 out of 1,000 pregnancies.

Need I go on?? Yes, our bodies were designed to give birth, but sometimes the design is flawed. Look at our bodies. How many people suffer from auto-immune disorders? How many people develop cancer? What about diabetes? So many things can go wrong in our "perfectly designed bodies". My body is designed to live until my natural death here in 40 some years. However, should I be diagnosed with cancer, I'm going to use medical science to fight it. Our bodies are not perfect (even if you eat organically and won't take a tylenol) and things go wrong all the time. Back before the advent of modern medicine, people dropped like flies, to put it bluntly. Babies died all the time. If a family had 4 children, they had a 50/50 chance of losing two of them before the age of 5.

Looking at the number of women who truly need medical assistance to give birth, can you really say "Your body was designed for this"?? We know if these women had not had medical assistance, they and their babies wouldn't be here right now. The fact is some babies NEED to be born in order to save their lives and/or the lives of their mothers. If a woman is dealing with Incompetent Cervix and she hadn't gotten that cerclage and P17 shots, her baby would not of made it. If her body is designed to carry and birth that baby, why did this happen? Did she not trust her body enough? If our bodies are perfect, why is there Pre- E, eclampsia, and HeLLP? These conditions can kill a mother and/or her baby. If bodies were so perfect, these would not occur. Blood incompatibilities would not occur and certainly would not of killed so many babies before the invention of Rhogam injections. So much for those perfect bodies, huh??

If our bodies were so perfectly designed, there would be no illness or disabilities. We would all live disease free until we took our last breath (barring some sort of accident, suicide, or homicide). Babies and children wouldn't die. I'm watching a family prepare to let their baby go on facebook and that sure as hell would not be happening if bodies were as perfect as advocates claim.