Poem Birth Story- "Medwives"

I received an emotional and touching birth story in the form of a poem from a reader recently.  She told a story about a friend who was convinced to have an induction during those impressionable and uncomfortalbe last days of pregnancy.  She wanted a natural birth, but it didn't go as planned.  The poem is touching and heart wrenching, and while not written by the mother but by the observent friend, it tells a sad tale.

It just breaks my heart that this is how women are giving birth when I know it can be so very different. 

(Names have been changed.  Dialogue indicated by BOLD, the mother's dialogue indicated by bold and italics.)

Medwives

OB/GYN:

Not a degree

but a disease

Highly communicable.

Chronic.

Cervidil

IV

Nubaine

I need to sleep, I need to sleep

Back labor

Slidey eyes

Unsteady head

I need pain relief, isn’t there something you can give me?

Monitors

Blood tests

Epidural

You need to be augmented, my dear.

Pitocin: 4 ml/h

Covert amniotomy

Pitocin: 6ml/h

It hurts

Push your button, Mia.

Tylenol

Pitocin: 8ml/h

Failing epidural

It hurts, it hurts

Ahh, ahh, shh-shh-shh

Have you pushed your button?

Pitocin: 10ml/h

Failed epidural

Pitocin: 12ml/h

Oh God, it hurts

Mia you have to listen to us, we can't help you if you don't listen to us.

Eighteen hours out from Cervidil.

Fetal malposition

brings on maternal malposition.

Chest flat on bed

Numb legs hold

butt in the air

We’ll check in half an hour.

If this doesn’t work,

we'll have to deliver baby another way--the vaginal bypass route.

I can’t breathe

I’m falling, I’m falling!

Chest pain

Contraction pain

Vertigo panic

Your chest has to be flat on the bed.

You’re not falling.

Hand after hand

Tube after tube

Into her red

You understand why we're doing this, don't you?

We're trying to avoid a c-section.

Then you'll know, everyone will know we did everything we can to avoid a c-section

Mia I need you to speak up and speak clearly to me, I can't help you if I can't understand you

Beestung breasts

Log legs

Pufferfish feet

Pitocin: 16ml/h

Shouts to ten

Intrauterine pressure catheter

Full dilation

Full two hours of pushing

Fully-formed hemorrhoids

Do you want a mirror?

No

If Pat was here, she’d make you have one. She can be very authoritative.

No progress.

No progress.

No progress.

Mia, we’re gonna have to deliver this baby another way.

She keens No!

I can’t have a c-section!

Why? Why can’t you have a c-section?

What are you afraid of?

Everything about it!

I feel like a failure

I feel like a failure

I feel like a failure

The recovery for a normal birth is about five days; for a c-section, it’s about 7.

The final lie

before

the final cut.

This one to the belly--

the rest to the woman.