I think natural birth practitioners secretly hate women more than Tony Abbott does
I think it's time I admitted to myself that the only reason the antinausea drugs worked so magically was that they were $200 for a weeks' supply and hard to get funded for me, so obviously OMG very good. And now the resulting placebo effect is pretty much worn off. Had to leave a short team meeting to be sick three times this morning, and i resorted to hydropops to keep hydrated.
It's not that they don't work completely, or that they have no therapeutic effect. I think they help. I mean, I was worse before. But... back in hell, really. And I hate complaining about it, because it sounds like I'm complaining about being pregnant, which is, along with having my wife, the best thing ever to happen to me. I love our baby so much. I just wish it didn't happen with hyperemesis as well.
Oh, well. Fifteen weeks to go. But I think it's time to start the discussion about early maternity leave with my doctor and work before sheer exhaustion and illness make me unfit to look after little Caius once he's born. I'm 25-6 weeks, it's obviously not going to stop itself.
From Hynobirthing by Marie Mongan:
If a pregnant woman wants and needs to be pampered, "waited upon" and coddled, and buys into the concept that pregnancy is an abnormal conditional and she is "ill", the attention that she gains during a troublesome pregnancy and a difficult birthing can definitely make it all worthwhile in her mind. She barely tolerates her pregnancy and constantly proclaims her annoyance at all the aches, pains and other "pregnancy disorders", while she uses body language that demonstrates her plight. Family members often contribute to this scenario by cautioning the woman that she must "give in" to her frailty during this precarious time of her life.
I don't often swear, but as someone who can't seem to walk from one side of a shopping mall to the other without throwing up, FUCK YOU MARIE. Also for the implication that romana03 doesn't coddle or pamper me unless I'm sick. You've obviously never met my wife, Marie. She's a lot nicer than the people you seem to know.
Mongan also blames mothers' attitudes for breach positioning and says that a woman who had a "horrific" delivery did so because "It was more important for this young woman to be able to remain in good standing in the sorority of her family and friends than it was to [...] birth her baby calmly and peacefully as she had prepared." Again, fuck you, Marie.
The worst of it is, I am committed to giving birth drug free if possible, in a birthing pool if I win the room lottery at the hospital, with music and cuddly toys and lots of cuddles and making it as happy and unmedicalised an experience as a hospital birth can be. I'm not doing the family thing of ordering an epidural and an induction first. And I do know that fear makes pain worse. But the books I read on natural birthing are so misogynist and woman-blaming, while claiming to be woman-centred, that they floor me. (And so very, very heterocentric. As well as assuming everyone is middleclass and well off - well, Mongan doesn't, she just says that if you can't afford things it's your fault because if you say "I can't afford this" then you will be poor forever, while if you never say that you will be rich. It's like she confuses birth techniques with The Secret.)