There is a wonderful peaceful car birth story up that you can fine on Cafe Mom.
It has a video of a father driving and filming the birth of his daughter in the front seat.
One of the best parts of the actual post there for me though was this:
But when Jennifer Russell gave birth to her baby girl in her car, it was the easiest birth I’ve ever heard of in my entire life. So easy, in fact, her husband was filming it while driving down the highway. And the loudest noises you hear come from the baby, and dad saying, “Oh my goodness.”
It makes me wonder what Aprils experiences have been like when it comes to birth. So often in our society we are shown images of screaming helpless women on their backs in hospital beds spread wide with a ring of nurses and Drs. We gather for baby showers and it never fails that the worst stories of birth are shared and it ends up being a “who had it worst” game of sorts.
It is not often in the mainstream community that we hear of peaceful birthing, like this car birth. Jennifer Russell the mother who gave birth in the car said she pushed once after her water broke and then she had her baby in arms. It is a video worth watching, and our society needs more of them.
Simply put, birthing does not have to be on your back, and screaming. I have had two very peaceful none medicated home births. My husband was deployed in Iraq for the first but got to hold me during the second. He was just commenting tonight about comparable pain and said that everyone compares pain to childbirth but that my last birth was so easy and quiet and simple that he does not think of things like that anymore.
I can’t tell you what makes the difference for some women. I can tell you that for me the number #1 thing between an out of control painful loud birth, and a quiet peaceful one was fear. I had a natural hospital birth before my two home births, I had planned for it to be with medication like the others. Labor though was painless so by the time I got to the hospital I was at 7cm and when they said I could not have pain killers I freaked out and it hurt so so badly, and baby was in arms 20 minutes later. I was scared of the setting, of not being educated on natural birth, I was scared I could not do it because of all the hospital birthing shows, because of the culture I grew up in where birthing is scary and loud and painful and curse from god.
After baby was delivered though it hit me, the Dr had done nothing. Nothing but stress me out, argue with me over my birth plan, and push pitocin in an IV that I did not medically need. I was up very quickly and in the shower and feeling great. I never had that energy and allertness with my epi births. I was shocked. I knew then that labor COULD be painless and it was, and I knew that fear is what caused my pain.
So I put it to the test with a homebirth and it was a near silent birth with me just whispering. I could do it. I did do it. It was amazing. Why had no one told me birth could be like that? And then I tested it again, another state, another kitchen, another midwife and it happened so beautifully. Easy.
So when I see this car birth, I don’t think how amazing and lucky it is, as if it is rare and scary, but how amazing it is that the mother knows whats possible, and that because of her and her husband and baby, now many other people do it!
