Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Sep
16
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“You Look Too Good To Be Close To Going Into Labor.”
“You look too good to be close to going into labor.” – OB to mother at just under 41 weeks of pregnancy.
There are 36 comments to this post.
Jen had this to say,
Sep 16, 2011 @ 4:33 am (Quote)
I fail to see the problem with this (unless the next statement was “so we have to induce tomorrow”). My midwife said that I had at least a week to go and looked great. He was born the next morning at 42 wks (I’d counted wrong). It’s amazing what expecting to go overdue and counting wrong can do 
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Do I have time to go model for the next Sears catalog? Go back to school? Buy a family friendly vehicle? Click my heels together three times and whisper “There’s no place like home?” What? You said I looked too good to be going into labor. I was just considering my options of what to do with my time.
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I’m… too sexy for my birth, too sexy for my baby… too sexy…
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so… I did not give birth 2 months ago… after being terrified of my water breaking early a seccond time I was not nearly ready to give birth at 37 weeks…. add to that having contractions that did not heart or even impeed what I could do for 2 days even 
I looked pretty good when I arrived at the hospital or some Pit so I could have a baby… and yet with no pain and looking good (if I do say so myself) I was at 5 cm when I arrived. did not even feel any pain till about 30 minutes till I gave birth(at 2 am) SOOOO what is wrong with “looking good?”
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I don’t understand why so many people equate being at term with looking miserable. I am 40 weeks, 2 days right now and people always say things like this. Why shouldn’t a pregnant woman look great? It’s a healthy, natural state of being — not a disease!
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I got this when I walked into L and D to have my last baby. I told them I was in active labor and was having the baby. They told me I couldn’t possibly be in labor because I was talking and laughing with my husband and the nurses. After some raised eyebrows, the nurse finally decided to “humor me” and check me when I told her I wasn’t going home to wait it out. I told her that it would go quick, but she just didn’t believe me. After they took their sweet time and made comments about how I was joking….they checked me and lo and behold, I was 7 centimeters. Baby was born less than 2 hours later.
You just can’t win. They either want every intervention known to man, or they refuse to check if you are actually in labor. I guess babies simply aren’t born outside an operating room.
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Jane Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 7:29 am (Quote)
I think it’s an assembly-line idea. Women should do the following five things when they’re in labor (1,2,3,4,5) and when you present without them, that means you’re not in labor. We see that all the time on this site when a doctor assumes a normal variation well within the bell curve is pathological because it’s not the average. Your baby is 5 pounds? Too small. It’s eight and a half pounds? Desperately huge.
That probably is reinforced by epidurals because epiduralized women can be treated more like an assembly-line deal. Look at the monitor, get the numbers, check the medications, crank up the pit, fill in the form. You walk in the room and there she is, neatly in the bed.
But a woman in an unmedicated labor who’s working with her body gives them more guessing to do, and some L&D nurses can’t muster up the flexibility to find the woman in the chair rather than on the bed, or in the hall or in the bathroom. And if the woman is laughing, she’s not in labor because laboring women should be crying OR should be in bed reading a book while the monitor has contractions and the needle in the spine delivers pain relief.
And then when it comes time to deliver, women need to be in one position and one set of procedures and one style of pushing and one set of tools to get the baby out. Because it’s just neater and more organized that way.
(This isn’t epidural-bashing, btw. I’m glad women have that option. But I would bet large-scale epidural use in hospitals lulls nurses into the assembly-line mindset.)
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Kasondra Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 8:41 am (Quote)
Wow. With my recent HB there’s a photo of me in the tub with a huge grin on my face…and I’m dilated to 8. I didn’t start vocalizing and focusing until 9cm…My midwife’s assistant even joked it didn’t sound like anyone was in labor until the last 2 hours.
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I would love to hear that, because I DON’T think I look good at term. But it could be said in a very insulting/discouraging way, and it could be used as an excuse for not listening to a woman about what her body is doing.
When I was well into labor with my first, we went to the doctor’s office to be checked before going to the hospital. Before going into the bathroom (*why* do they want pee when I’m in labor?!), I had a good, strong, 45-second contraction. I sat down on a chair and relaxed through the contraction with closed eyes and a blank face while my husband and the nurse waited for me. After 25 seconds the nurse reached down and felt my belly. “Oh, that is a good strong contraction!” she said, surprised. I think that since I wasn’t showing discomfort she thought that I wasn’t feeling anything and wasn’t really having a contraction! I was 4 cm at the time.
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labortrials had this to say,
Sep 16, 2011 @ 8:28 am (Quote)
I was using this OB for ‘shadow care’ though ended up VBA2Cing with him at the hospital. He started talking about how it’d be better if I’d go into labor at 38 weeks, then at 39 weeks, and then again at 40 weeks. In my 40th week he did a BPP which was perfect but still insisted on scheduling a 41.5 week cesarean. Even though he believed that I just gestate longer (what longer than the 38-42week average?), he wasn’t willing to wait. And yes, each time I looked too good… too pulled together, I guess… for immanent birth. Oh, and all of the hiking, sex, etc. in the world wouldn’t help me go into labor…
My repeat cesarean was scheduled. I still wasn’t going into labor. I still looked to good to go into labor even the day of my cesarean. So, what did I do? Take that as a strong indication that a life-saving 41.5 week cesarean was not necessary. I cancelled my cesarean that morning.
Went into labor (sort of on my own – castor oil & a long fast walk) later that day (7pm) and was holding my baby before 6am the next morning.
At least I was a great example that:
1. babies will be born if we wait for them (and I knew she was healthy in there)
2. looking good should be a compliment not a curse
3. not all uteri will rupture (even with previous thin LUS diagnosis at term TWIN cesarean)
4. CPD is generally a bogus diagnosis (my baby’s head was 15.5in)
5. babies can be born healthily ‘even’ past 40 weeks
Sorry if I’m rambly. I’m just still mystified by all of the demotivating tactics he took during my last trimester. (He was the only doc I knew of in town who would ‘allow’ VBA2C. And I have to say, he was BRILLIANT as a labor coach.)
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Amanda Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 9:03 am (Quote)
I love a story with a happy ending! Maybe you looked “too good” because you were calm and confident. Could be that most of his patients are frazzled messes after giving over complete control to the OB. Way to go on a great birth!
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Krista Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 9:58 am (Quote)
Now that you explain it, your OB using this “compliment” as a way to discourage you from laboring naturally, he was a jerk! I’m glad you went on to prove him wrong.
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Melissa Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 10:04 am (Quote)
What a weird “reason” for not being able to birth your baby! (Glad you didn’t buy it…my hat’s off to you! Sounds like you handled everything with strength, grace, and dignity. Go you!)
Shall we add “you look too good” to the list of faux contra-indications for spontaneous vaginal birth? Sheeeeesh!
What will they think of next?
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Lindsey had this to say,
Sep 16, 2011 @ 11:58 am (Quote)
While out grocery shopping with my 2 children I was asked when I was due, “today” I replied and the woman says “oh my, and you are up and around and looking so good. Your dates must be off”. (?)
I went into labor 11days later and laughed through contractions until about an hour before my son started life on the outside.
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Jena Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 12:49 pm (Quote)
This totally sounds like something my mother-in-law (91yo) would say. Starting at about 8 months, she alternated between telling me that I looked great and too small to be nearly at term, and that I was going to go into labor any second. I’ve decided to assume that what she said depended on which shirt I was wearing that day. She has been, though, totally supportive of breastfeeding; I think she feels that she missed out on a lot by not bfing her boys. (Her docs told her that formula was better for them.) She also told me that after doing it naturally and having a C-section the second and third time, a C-section was definitely the way to go. I cringe when I think about what her first birth experience must have been like.
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Add Your Comment.
1) Well, it’s nice that a doctor is taking into account the whole woman.
2) Please don’t discourage her. She’s at 41 weeks. She’s pretty much going to go into labor in the next week or thereabouts. No woman remains pregnant forever, even without pitocin.
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Tee Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 9:02 pm Tee(Quote)
My sister carried her youngest for 46 weeks. 46. I seriously did think she was going to be pregnant forever. She thought she was going to be pregnant forever. Everyone did. It was crazy.
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Jane Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 4:29 am Jane(Quote)
How sure was she of her date of conception?
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Tee Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 11:54 am Tee(Quote)
100% sure!
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Mama Mirage Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 6:08 pm Mama Mirage(Quote)
Wow! Well good for her for hanging in there! I’d have lost my mind while waiting and wound up delivering in the phych ward. I’m not good at waiting! Lol! My sister’s husband was born at 45 weeks and I totally admire his mom for hanging in there!
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Tee Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 8:08 pm Tee(Quote)
Her first baby was born via c-section due to classic bullying behavior from the OB. It left my sister scarred in every sense of the word, so when she got pregnant with her second, she opted for a home birth. It went so well that numbers 3, 4 and 5 were also born at home. It’s been 11 years since that first birth and she is finally able to enjoy her daughter’s birthday without all the bad memories. I hate that she had such a bad experience but I’m also very proud of her for standing up for herself and her babies after that. And rest assured that she was near about crazy by the time Vee was born! I was convinced that kid was NEVER going to come out!
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