Births Beyond Belief???

This week on Discovery Health is Baby Week. My good friend text me to watch their first episode of the week called, "Births Beyond Belief." The episode followed 3 vaginal births. The first birth was an unintentional unassisted birth in Hawaii. The husband ended up delivering the baby because the wife's birth happened so fast. The husband did an amazing job. It was so natural and NORMAL. The midwife ended up coming 15 minutes after the healthy baby was born. She delivered the placenta. It was such a peaceful beautiful birth attended by the mother in law and their two children. The second birth was in Los Angeles. The couple was planning a homebirth but couldn't not have one because the baby was breeched. In California midwives are not allowed to delivery breeched babies. They had to deliver in the hospital so the couple found the one doctor to deliver their breeched baby. Even though she had to compromise and get an epidural, the delivery looked so natural and NORMAL. The Dr. and nursing staff was so great and the happy couple had their vaginal birth that they wished for. The 3rd birth was in New Jersey. It was a water birth attended by a midwife, doula and family. The baby came out so beautifully, straight into Mommy's arms. Again so natural and NORMAL. It's so interesting that the media labels what women do NATURALLY as something that is "beyond belief." No wonder our C-section rate is at it's highest rate. Natural, NORMAL, beautiful births are not the norm any more even though women have been doing natural births for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. This makes me sad and angry. Yes hospitals are necessary if someone is a high risk pregnancy, or if there is a medical necessity. I ended up having an unplanned C-section. That was a necessity. But to label NORMAL, NATURAL births as something "beyond belief," is just not right. (Thursday there is another episode Freebirthing.)

On a side note, I found myself weeping, watching the two homebirths. I wasn't sure if it was purely tears of joy for the couples or it was pain and disappointment of NOT having my own homebirth. I still don't know. I think it was a bit of both. I guess I am not done healing from my disappointment. It still hurts and there was a pinch in my heart when watching those amazing homebirths. But I guess that's part of the process.