Six years ago today I was in the middle of false labor

About this time, six years ago, I was having sleepless nights over the prospect of not going into labor to deliver my second baby. Well, they were two sleepless nights to be exact. I was already into my second day of false labor.

Anybody that has had to live through that hell knows what I'm talking about : You get humongous contractions that make you feel you're going to spit your guts out and then they start wanning and wanning and trickling until they stop ... to start all over again the next day.

When I started blogging, I had done it with the intention of writing about motherhood. I wanted to exorcize the demons that had encumbered me with writer's block. culturekitchen started as a "mommy blog" and, in a way, I've always felt it's kept to it's spirit. We blog about the domestic and personal side of politics in more ways than one.

Motherhood radically altered my practices and politics. Blogging has made it possible for me to creatively unfold this change through my writing and political activism.

With that in mind, I'd like to reprint a post about the closing of Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center. Without their midwives, I would have had a hard time going through my pregnancy, needless to say labor. I've just fished it out the archives ... it's so old, it's MovableType number is 000047 in an archive that has almost 3000 entries.

So without further ado, I'm republishing A very personal reason for not closing the Elizabeth Seaton Child bearing Center. And for the story behind my cesarian-birthed baby, go to Friday 21 august 1997; 12:01 pm.

I'm off to baking cupcakes.

a very personal reason for not closing the Elizabeth Seaton Child bearing Center
by Liza Sabater

Friends of Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center

A bit over 4 years ago, during the heat wave of 1999, I thought I was dying. No matter how much water I drank, how many showers I took and how much I tried to stay cool, I could hardly stop from fainting. Then a vague recollection of periods and a hankering for meat led me to the obvious. I discovered I was pregnant, once again, unexpectedly.

My husband and I had just started to speculate about the right time to have junior #2. Maybe in 2 or 3 more years we mumbled. It actually happened within a few months of the mumbling. We were happy but somewhat terrified. Actually, I was terrified by the prospect of returning to the obstetrician that delivered our first son.

Our first son was not born of woman. He was brought to this world by the scheduled and timely scalpel of my Ob/GYN lady.

From very early on, amidst the excitement of her wedding preparations, she had decided by the grace of a false positive alpha-feto protein test that mine was a "high risk" pregnancy. Then at 8 1/2 months, after a month and a half of my telling her that the baby was not turning, the confirmation of the risk came in with the declaration that, due to the baby's breech position and his size, nothing could be done but to schedule a c-section.

I protested but since I had done nothing to seek better advice after the faulty test, I put myself and my baby in the hands of a woman that I distrusted and resented. I let my fear and ignorance get the best of me. All went the way a scheduled cesarian section should go; but the anger, confusion, distrust and resentment coupled with the absence of any labor left me feeling defeated, incomplete and ultimately depressed --and I mean that in the clinical sense.

When I first suspected of being pregnant with #2, I hesitated about going back to the Ob/GYN. My distrust of her kept me from looking for any doctors and so, I thought, I needed to go to her office to at least corroborate the pregnancy. So I scheduled an appointment with her partner; who was actually her saving grace. I was mysteriously not informed of her departure until I got to the office.

There was not way to avoid a meeting with the trigger of my depression.

Politely I went through the drill, but this time with a heightened clarity of the things I did not want to happen --and everything happened exactly as I suspected. Nurses rushing papers in my hand to sign (which I declined), for a battery of test I had not discussed yet with the doctor (which I declined as well).

Then came the moment to face the woman that robbed me and my son of a natural birth.

This time around she had a larger office, a corner one and there were pictures of her and her husband with a baby. I was shocked. She was the last person to seem like a mother to me. As we spoke I could not contain my curiosity. I had to know. "So how long was the labor?", I asked as an aside. A pregnant pause filled the space between us: "I ... it was ... it ended up being a c-section after all."

I truly felt sorry for her at that moment. She was so desperate to hide her disappointment. She looked ashamed and I completely understood how she felt. With a determination I had not felt in a long time, I wished her luck, bid her farewell and walked out of that office never to return.

I was not just saying goodbye to her, I was taking my life and my baby's life into my hands, not depositing them blindly into the hands of anybody. I was making a bold statement of purpose, to bid farewell to convention and follow not just my heart but my guts. Nothing was going to stop me from beating the odds and having a V-BAC (vaginal birth after cesarian). After all was said and done, I knew I needed not just people but women who took convention with more than a grain of salt and respected their patients as their peers. I knew I needed partners to help me bring this new baby into the world together, as a team, not as a patient.

The following morning I skipped into the world of Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center.

Having my second son with the midwife nurses of Elizabeth Seton was an incredibly healing experience. With them, I was able to learn to trust not just health care-givers again but myself as well. Although it is true I did not get to have my son at the center (wretched laws and liabilities in reference to my previous c-section robbed me of that advantage), the staff made every possible effort to make this the least "medicalized" experience I could get under the circumstances.

They shared their battle stories as mothers and midwives. They would avoid as much as possible the prospect of needles at every meeting. And when it came time to tests, they did not discuss them as a must have but as a choice. Their concern was always for my emotional well being during the vulnerable 9 months of pregnancy. They wanted to make sure that I was sound of health, of mind and soul as well; for inner strength is was a woman needs the most during the painful period of labor. They won my trust by having me visit with each and every midwife, not being able to pick favorites for the final 'show'. Most importantly, they treated me with the respect of not just a partner but a leader. It is after all my body and it is my baby after all who is residing in it. Not at a moment did they question anything I did or said. On the contrary, it was to them an insight to what was to come. They even started to cheer me on, as the EDA (estimated date of arrival) closed-in. "She's going to be our VBAC" they would tell anybody with such gusto that I was tempted at one point to get them cheerleading pom poms.

I was able to have my baby thanks to their care, charity and most importantly, their expertise in child birthing. Every single procedure that was done had a reason. At the hospital even though they had to hook me up to monitors (which I completely disliked), they waited until it was absolutely necessary. Everything they did was in just the measure needed to get me going; there was never anything done for the sole purpose of covering their liability insurance "behinds".

A birth is a sacred experience. It has no place at a hospital --unless, of course, it is absolutely necessary to perform surgery. The Elizabeth Seton Child birthing Center is the only place in all of Manhattan where a woman can have a baby OUTSIDE of a hospital setting. With its closing the other alternative would be to have the baby at home or to go out of the borough in search of another center. Not only would this be inconvenient and potentially dangerous, but not everybody has the money or the brawn for a home birth. In effect, one of the main attractions of the center is that it is a half-block away from St. Vincent's Hospital; the perfect distance for dealing with any emergencies. During my tenure as a client, one woman was transferred to the hospital in about 10 minutes. She ended up having her baby naturally after all.

It is a terrible day when we let corporate greed run not just our health care system but our WELLNESS CARE system as well. We cannot let "the bottom line" shut down this oasis for expectant mothers. September 2nd, will go down as a day of infamy if The Elizabeth Seton Child birthing Center ever has to shut its doors.

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