My baby doesn't care how he's born.

...Right? That's what I'm trying to convince myself of: that this whole birth thing is like a tiny footnote to the rest of my baby's life. When it's all said and done, it won't really be that big of a deal how it all went down. Right? ...Trying to convince myself...not succeeding. Probably because even if his birth is a footnote to HIS life, it's like a major milestone of mine. SO...yeah. It matters.

DISCLAIMER before you read any further: I'm not looking for advice, or sympathy, or soapboxes. I also write only about my own experience...there's no judgment from me toward moms who feel differently about all this stuff. It's an intensely personal journey that we all need to walk for ourselves. Mostly I just need to vent. So bear with me for a minute.

So, here's the stats. My due date is tomorrow, Thursday the 15th. As of today (Wednesday the 14th), I'm NOT dilated. Not at all. Soft, but not dilated. (For those who don't know what this means, you don't want or need to know, other than the fact that labor's probably not imminent.) A c-section is scheduled for next Tuesday afternoon (the 20th), and if I don't go into labor by that time (either by natural means or induction), I will be going under the knife. Again.

"What's most important is a healthy mom and a healthy baby." --- I can't tell you how many times I've heard this in relation to discussions about different styles of birthing, and particularly in discussions about my desire to have a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Caesarean). Generally, it comes from the camp who aren't so concerned with the birth experience itself - that was probably self-evident. My own doctor said these very words at my appointment last week. And it is so not helpful. [If you're one of the people who has said this to me, I want you to know it's totally okay - we're good. But, I'd also gently encourage you to reconsider before saying it to another expectant mom.] Humor me:

1. Yes, OF COURSE mine and my baby's health are the most important thing.  However, that doesn't make it the only important thing.

2. It feels like you're implying that because the birth experience matters to me, that mine and my baby's health are somehow not important to me. ...The two are not mutually exclusive.

3. At the end of the day, if God blesses me with a healthy baby, I will be grateful no matter how he got here. (In fact, I'll be grateful even if he's not healthy.) But this doesn't mean that the birth process itself is nothing more than a means to an end, some minor "procedure"that is on par with getting your wisdom teeth out. It matters. A lot. To me.

Back story: Annabel was breach (or as she likes to tell it, she wanted to come out "butt first," which she thinks is hilarious). I went all the way to 41.5 weeks before they discovered this fact, all without a single sign of labor - not even a lousy Braxton Hicks (i.e. "false") contraction. I used my four remaining days before my 42-week deadline to try everything I could to get her to turn head down, but by that time she was over nine pounds and wasn't going anywhere. At 42 weeks I had a scheduled c-section. Nine months of reading and learning and watching about labor and birth, forming all kinds of soapboxes and hopes and desires, all the anticipation...and just like that, I set an alarm for 7:30 in the morning and groggily made my way to the hospital. I got wheeled into the OR and poof, 30 minutes later, I had a baby - a baby that I didn't even get to see for the first time until she was all wrapped up, cleaned up, and had been crying for a good ten minutes. (Grateful for her health above all? Absolutely. But because she was healthy, why couldn't I see her right away?)  I was literally numb from the chest down and mentally groggy from tiredness and anesthesia. The whole thing was a blur and I was barely able to be emotionally present. I felt...hardly anything. Miraculous? Not so much. Anticlimactic? Yeah, that was more like it.

So, I really don't want a repeat of that whole experience. (We won't even talk about the painful month of recovery from major abdominal surgery and how that would impact my ability to be available to my 3-year-old, who will already be frustrated about sharing me.)

But what a previous c-section means for me this time around is that having a "normal" birth is much more difficult and complicated (at least within our medical system). My uterus has a big scar that makes it more dangerous to labor naturally (this is true - it's more dangerous, though not flat-out dangerous). My doctor has made it clear that she's very uncomfortable having me labor with a nine-pound-plus baby and "pushing on that scar." As of one week ago, Pepe was estimated to be around 8.5 pounds. In the last month babies gain about half a pound a week. Which makes him around nine pounds right now.

My doctor's options for me: if I start to dilate while my baby is still at or less than nine pounds, she can induce me. Or, I can wait to go into labor naturally - though she's not sure if she'll really be okay with me delivering him. Or, I can just skip the whole thing and have a [second] scheduled c-section.

A second scheduled c-section means that once again, I totally miss out on the process of labor and birth. It means that I will continue to live my life as a mom without having any idea what a contraction even feels like (which, call me crazy, but I'd really like to experience before I die). It also pretty much rules out ever getting to experience labor and birth, even if we decide to have more babies, because if the medical establishment is against birth after one c-section, you better believe they're against it after TWO c-sections.

...All I want is to get to experience the process that my female body was uniquely made to experience, and to get to feel fully involved and emotionally present in the birth of my child, instead of passive, numb, and disengaged. I want to hold my baby the moment he's born, rather than having to settle for stroking his face because both my arms are tied down to blood pressure monitors and IV's.

If none of this makes sense to you, that's totally fine; don't worry about it. Sometime in the next week you'll get our birth announcement and I won't be offended that you don't care about the birth and how it all went, other than that we're all healthy. Honestly. It's fine. We're good.

But for those of you who do care, thanks for letting me vent to you and for caring about all this. And even if you totally don't get where I'm coming from, would you mind throwing up a prayer that God would allow for this baby to find his way out the good old-fashioned way? Because it really, seriously, would mean so much to me. (--- Both your prayers and the experience of labor and birth.)

In return, I promise to keep you posted on any and all updates and to inundate you with copious amounts of newborn pictures via blog and facebook. Deal?