Personal Birth Experience

The birth experience that I want to describe is my own when I was pregnant with my daughter, Madelynn, who is now 3 years old. Wow, time flies by! I had been having contractions all week, but they usually stopped by the middle of the day. On Friday, my husband and I decided that we were going to go to the state fair. I had been having contractions in the morning, but didn't think anything of it, giving the experience throughout the week. Well, after walking around the fair ground, I realized that the contractions were not going away and were getting stronger. We went home and after trying to sleep through them, I told my husband that we better get to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 1:00 am Saturday morning and my doctor agreed that I was in active labor. We had originally planned on inducing labor on Monday (3 days later), but my body had something else in mind. I received some medicine to allow me to get about 2 hours of sleep, but I woke up again around 7:00 am with the contractions getting stronger. I requested an epidural for pain, but being the kind person that I was, I allowed the anesthesiologist to tend to a patient in surgery before treating me (HUGE MISTAKE). My doctor came in around 8:30 am, broke my water and started me on pitocin. The contractions rapidly got stronger and I quickly regretted being so kind to the person in surgery. I received my epidural around 11:00 am, which allowed me to relax enough for my daughter to drop the rest of the way down. At 12:44 pm, after a lot of pushing and tearing, my daughter came into this world at 9 lbs 2 oz and 20.25 inches long. I was completely exhausted, but overjoyed by the birth of our new baby girl. I was very impressed by the service that I received at the hospital. The staff was very professional, but compassionate. My doctor did an excellent job talking me through the birthing experience and recovery.

My birthing experience could be considered rather calm and organized compared to the birthing experiences described in the paper written by Kathryn Geurts. She spent some time living in Ghana, studying the birthing practices and wrote detailed accounts of two birthng experiences. Ghana is a rural area in Africa where the mortality rate of infants and mothers is considered high. Due to the mortality rates, there is a push for institutionalized births where the process can be monitored by trained professionals. Unfortunately, most women who live in Ghana cannot afford professional care and prefer to have the birth of their children at home where they can use their own traditional medicines and practices.

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Workshop/geurts.html

Tiffany

Reference:

Geurts, K. (1998). Well-being and birth in rural ghana: local realities and global mandates. University of Pennsylvania-African Studies Center. Retrieved on October 31, 2012, from http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Workshop/geurts.html.