** Hedra and Dangerosa both rock. **
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, I really hope Cheetos are on that list!
I don’t think having an epidural is irresponsible. I don’t believe that I have ever implied that.
I planned not to have one partially because I tested positive for group B strep. The less time the baby spends in the birth canal the less chance there is of transmission. The side effects of epidurals can include inefficient pushing and longer labor. Also I wanted to breastfeed and thought if I could move better it would be easier. I had gestational diabetes. If I could not nurse immediately, they would have given her sugar water and I did not want that. Also, I am obese. There are studies showing complication rates higher and the complications worse for epidurals given to obese women; the doctor is more likely to make a bad stick. I also don’t want a doctor I don’t know to do an invasive procedure. I have had fat phobic doctors and techs that seemed to delight in causing pain to fat people. Also, the pain I feared was not the contractions, which I had been having for months, but the stretching and splitting. Epidurals don’t do as much for that pain. I wanted to be able to have some sense of control and felt that not feeling parts of my body would rob me of any chance of that.
All of those are very personal reasons. I did feel in control. I was able to stay calm and focused. I was able to push Loren out amazingly fast. I nursed her for 45 minutes of the first hour of her life and they did not give her sugar water. She had nothing but breastmilk for the first five months of her life. She continues to nurse now. All of the reasons I made my choices were personal. Many were as much for my comfort as for Loren. I don’t expect everyone to make the same decisions that I did. They are not me. But I am damned tired of hearing that I must be insane for having natural child birth. I read that comment wrong, partly because I have been mocked for my choices, repeatedly. In tinking about it, I even rememer a few episodes of Maternity Ward that were like that–See this woman have her child without pain killers, she is insane!
I do think it is best for children to have a stay at home parent, if one of the parents has a suitable temperament. I don’t have it. Luckily, my husband does. He does make all of Loren’s solid food. We are also lucky enough to live a couple of blocks from a produce store that sells great fresh vegetables cheaply. It might not be as easy as opening a jar, but it does smell better.
And not all the right choices are the hard ones. I think cloth diapers are best. Luckily, we live in an area with a diaper service. For $21.45 a week, we don’t have to launder poopy diapers or deal with disposables.
I do understand that not everything goes the way one wants it too. From age 5 months to 8 months, we supplemented with formula. I did not like doing that, but we survived. We easily weaned her from the bottle at 8 months when my milk picked up again and she began to eat more solid food. I still have no idea why weaning was so easy. Lucky us!
I don’t expect others to do as I do. I don’t mock them for making their own choices.
lee, I’ve been the recipient of the ‘good god, why would you want to do THAT?’ ( :rolleyes: ) reaction regarding natural childbirth, too. Plus the ‘wow, you must be really strong’ and the ‘you must have good genes’ and the ‘you must have a high pain tolerance’ etc. It totally infuriates me. I can tolerate the true befuddlement/confusion reaction (‘you don’t want pain meds? Why not, and I’m actually asking a real question?’), quite easily, but they are few and far between.
I am not a freakin superhero. I am just someone who felt it was important, and believed I could do it, and because I believed I could do it, I did whatever I could to make sure I DID do it. First time, didn’t work out. I don’t feel let down (even though I had a bazillion side effects from the epidural, and they didn’t get the line set right the first try and had to re-do, etc.), as I’m sure if you ended up needing one for reasons you felt were rational, you wouldn’t either. And I’ve also had a natural (no pain meds) birth with pitocin augmentation. Again, I busted my butt to prepare, and this time it worked out. But when women again and again said ‘you must be special, you got lucky, you aren’t normal’ instead of ‘damn, you worked hard to get that, congratulations!’ it really offends me. And it makes me angry, not only for the congratulations I feel I earned and didn’t get, but also for the sense that for ‘normal’ women, it is impossible.
What I have discovered since then is that there is a definite difference between believing something is possible, in general (for some), and believing it is possible for oneself. As soon as you believe it is possible (okay, and worth doing) for yourself, REALLY believe it, then it becomes easy to put in the work, find the time, take the classes, pursue the options, fight for the opportunities, etc.
And once I realized that, I had to go :smack: - it applies to the rest of my life, too. Diet, exercise, budgeting, activism (peace/etc.) - if I believe that I can do it, ME, this person, not just ‘some people’, when I really believe that it is worth doing (yeah, we all say those are good things, right?), and I believe I can do it, then it becomes as easy to make the time, release my fears, find others who can help, fight off pernicious influences from our culture, and just get off my butt and do it.
And that in turn made it much easier for me to understand how hard it is to cross that line from ‘some people’ to ‘ME’… and gave me a bit more compassion for (and a better answer to) those who greet my second son’s birth story with ‘well, you must have really good hips or something’. Yeah, I do. And I also busted my butt to get what I got, and other women can do it, too. It is a matter of believing I can, and then acting on that belief. Won’t always work out, but without putting in the effort, the results aren’t going to magically appear out of nowhere. Same for staying on a diet, or a budget, being involved in causes you support, or exercising. None of that happens unless we believe we can do it enough that our excuses evaporate and we get off our butts. Most people have some area of their life where they wince when I discuss this - I had a lot. Okay, all the ones listed, actually. :o
Of course, this has zero impact on those who don’t believe it is worthwhile anyway, but that’s far easier for me to deal with - opinions of that sort can be discussed, or let alone, or addressed with a ‘don’t mock my beliefs, and I won’t mock yours’ reaction. But having an answer for the ‘wow/holy shit’ crowd helps sort out the difference.
Not sure if that is useful for you, but I found it a useful insight for myself.
(Oh, and I have felt in your posts that automatic negative/judging reaction to things you wouldn’t choose for yourself, probably from the sense that you’ve been beating with that stick one too many times… so I don’t think Dangerosa is imagining the flavor. Good to know that it is just angst bleed-through, and not intent. But you might as well be aware that it is showing, and not just to one person.)
Thanks lee. I was hoping it was confidence in your own choices. But it can be hard to tell the difference.
Since we are handing out compliments…hedra is one of the few “parenting experts” I’ve ever read who consistantly has seemed completely confident in her own choices and educated about them, but able to post without seeming the least bit intolerant (at least to me) of someone who made different choices (as long as those choices don’t cross the line to abuse - but she has a reasonable line. I’ve met breastfeeding advocates who believe formula is abuse - think about how that makes people without choices feel. “Well, of course its ok if you HAVE too” doesn’t exactly help when you are comparing formula to burning my kid with cigarette butts. :rolleyes: )
And Shirley is able to post as someone completely and total happy with the choices she has made - although she is able to capture so accurately the befuddlement of parenthood - “is it possible for someone to fit more than five beans up their nose? And, although I wouldn’t trade it for the world, how exactly did I wind up wondering this?”
If the two of you ever do write parenting books, I’ll be first in line to buy them.
Phew, I’m glad I’ll have at least one book sold! 
Now, it IS about new motherhood, so you might be a bit disappointed… but you’re buying anyway, right? Puh-llleeeeeeeease? (I’m working on chapter 4…)
Can you also write one about how to deal with people who won’t stop inflicting advice on you that you don’t want or need? No, really, the cats are not going to steal the babies’ breath!
And can I have a special book to hand to clueless people who are putting their children at risk by doing things like turning their car seats around at 5 months?
I could write you three chapters on the crap people give you over circumcision!
When I buy your book, can I get an autographed copy??
tanookie
Book 1 is a set of those hand-out business cards. They start with: Thank you for the advice. I’m glad you care about my baby’s wellbeing. Our baby’s doctor says we’re doing things exactly right. (I find that the people who offer that advice as if they were experts tend to nod and agree with you all of a sudden when you invoke an ACTUAL expert, like the baby’s doctor, even if relying on a single expert is a logical fallacy in itself…) and they go all the way to: I’m this child’s mommy, and you’re not.
Book 2 is another set of cards, color coded by type of danger. Under 1 year old, in rear-facing seats, long/tall babies might break a leg; Front facing they’ll break their neck. Which would you prefer? Toddlers move faster when you aren’t looking; please don’t leave yours by the pool unattended. (etc.)
I have a special chapter just for dealing with crap from other people, actually. You can provide some of the illustrative stories, okay? 
Fortunately, nobody has ever given me crap on circumcision (I don’t think anyone would dare, really), and the only person who got close was really reacting to her anticipation of me giving crap to her about her choice (we didn’t, they did)… she calmed down later when she realized that I wasn’t going to call her a bad mommy, I was really just asking how he’d responded to the pain meds.
Hedra,
I had all my 4 babies without any pain medication and I hear all the time “You must have a high pain tolerance!”
It drives me crazy! My reasons for not getting an epidural are numerous, but the reason was NOT because it just didn’t hurt me all that much.
I did a lot to make a natural childbirth happen. It took serious work and committment from me and my husband.
I like your interpretation of how the experience changed your outlook on life.
It’s like you know me.
::::::::::looking around::::::::::
An amusing Parental Anecdote:
My 5 year old son and 4 year old daughter were taking a bath in our baathroom. ( It’s more of them washing the floor than actually bathing themselves.) and I was folding laundry in the bedroom .
There was a lull in chaos and I peeked around the corner to see that they weren’t mutally holding each others heads under the water. I could be sitting in the tub with them and they would try this, so supervision and diligence means nothing when kids decide to see who can hold whose head under water the longest.
I see my darling daughter on the tail end of a THWACKING her brother in the face lamely with something wet, a wash cloth, I presume. It was pretty lame. He sees that I see and goes into high gear in an attempt to win an OSCAR for *Most Overacting in a Bath Tub *Scene. It is a nightly performance and changes venues.
“Mama! Teagan hit me in the face with a wash cloth!”
“Teagan, " I say sternly, " Did you hit your brother in the face with a wash cloth?”
" She hhhit mmme in the eyeeee with a wassssh cloth. Wah." came the Barrymore.
My Little Princess of Doom looks at me with her soul sucking light brown eyes and says sweetly, holding up a dripping pink thing. " No, I used my sock."
Offsetting penalties were called and the typhoon in the tub resumed.
This cracked me up…I can just see someone handing out one of those “Toddlers move faster…” cards and getting an “I’m this child’s mommy, and you’re not” in response. We won’t even have to speak anymore! I could actually think of a million things I’d want on cards that have nothing to do with parenting. You could do a whole series, like the *Chicken Soup for the… * books.
Comment cards for parenting, comment cards for when you have a cold, comment cards for pet owners (this would be a huuuuge bestseller)…can I invest in you?! 
Shirley Ujest, Hedra, tanookie, Dangerosa and everyone - I wanted to tell you guys about this fantastic parenting magazine. I’m not kidding. A friend of mine bought me a subscription, and as I was reading the latest issue I remembered this thread (which I really enjoyed - your points about mainstream parenting magazines were excellent). The magazine is Brain, Child and if its authors aren’t Dopers, they should be. I think you’d all really enjoy it. http://www.brainchildmag.com/
I happen to know T. Berry Brazelton. I think I’ve read enough of his books to tell you with some confidence that his advice to you would be, “Relax. It’s OK. Enjoy your baby.”
Enjoy your baby. Good advice.
Here’s a sample of his stuff.
Fessie thanks for the link. I will be looking into finding Brainchild.
I would like to highly recommend **The Girl Friends Guide to Pregnancy ** (by Vickie Iovine) and the other assorted titles. ( the latter ones I haven’t read yet.)
It was a wonderful mixture of advice, hysteria, bemusement and hang in there it’ll be over in 20 years. It was the perfect book for me at the right time. YMMV.
Oh, yes! I absolutely adore Vicky Iovine. Her Guide to the First Year is also excellent; in addition to being funny, it’s really compassionate. When I was struggling with postpartum anxiety, her book was one thing that calmed me down. I think she does have a lot of food issues, but would strongly recommend her books nonetheless.
Mine does this on his own accord. He is the only toddler I’ve ever known who gleefully passed up cookies AND ice cream in favor of fresh fruit. He learned “banana” and “apple” before “cookie”. How about this article:
How to Deal with Your Child’s Unnatural “Healthy” Food Preferences: Sneaking fruit into the movie. Not offending well-meaning relatives and friends who don’t understand that it’s your child refusing dessert, not you. Explaining to people that your child isn’t underweight, just normal. Listening to your child pitch a holy-hell fit because there’s cheese sauce on the broccoli and asking the server for plain.
snorf
Robin