Maybe next time I’ll go somewhere that will let me choose positions that work for me and the baby and this won’t be so long and painful.

or maybe next time i’ll have a homebirth.

and next time I’m for SURE hiring a different health care provider.

What was the point of the OB saying this? What could POSSIBLY have inconvenienced him/her to where the woman laboring decides, having a MAL-POSITIONED baby, to get some pain relief a little later than the *OB* ‘thought’ she would have gotten it? Power trip anyone? UGH! What does that have to do with anything?! Way to kick a woman when she’s down, but then again it seems most OBs enjoy doing that…

This isn’t mine, but I had a nurse tell me something similar after I had my daughter. This time I’m having a homebirth in direct response to what happened to me during my hospital birth that necessitated the epidural… ugh

OB interpretation: See, I was right. You were wrong. I know all. You know nothing. Bow to my knowledge and accept that you are powerless over my will in this unfortunate reality called birth.

I hope she stays at home next time.. Nobody deserves this abuse!!!!

Interestingly enough, I didn’t have any rotten comments like this when I tried to push out my OP baby after laboring all day (she busted my tailbone, but did not come out). And I pushed in all sorts of positions, squatting being my favorite and longest attempted. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what position mom is in for the pain when the baby is badly positioned (I was up and moving the whole time, had tried spinning babies, etc., no dice).

With my ORT (occiput right transverse) baby, I transferred from home to the hospital to either have the baby or get an epidural–the need arose at home, in the water and after an hour, I made the decision to transfer, believing I was in late transition and that had to be the cause of it, but unable to bear it any longer. I found out that not only was I still at the beginning of my labor, but the pain levels I was experiencing (no, I wasn’t afraid, tense, etc., yes, I had tried relaxation, meditation, moaning, singing, breathing, distraction, etc., no, none of it worked) were preventing me from progressing and were sending my baby into distress. Still, it was 8 hours before I got an epidural, despite both the baby and I going into distress repeatedly.

This OB was an idiot and horribly insensitive, but she didn’t mention her position or if this was iatrogenic. Just that the OB was a jerk. Which s/he was.

Dear Doc, didn’t they tell you that all birth experiences are different? The Mom might go on to have her next birth be super easy! I think the better thing to do would have been to say “You did very well, its just a difficult situation that no one anticipated.”

This comment seems to epitomize the problem with the way the medical community views birth. Because things sometimes do not go well, and because birth sometimes requires certain interventions, we should all just go ahead and get all the interventions right up front, and we’re wrong for even trying to do without. They leap onto every example of a woman trying to give birth without an intervention and then needing that intervention as proof that they were right all along. If a woman births four babies without anesthesia and then gets an epidural after several hours of incredibly painful labor with her fifth, that’s proof that all women everywhere should get an epidural as soon as possible. It’s ridiculous, illogical, and cruel in the way it discourages women about their ability to give birth.