I appreciate all of the gnarly and visceral descriptions of childbirth that you’ve expertly laid out. I had two births, first a c-section and then a home birth, and I am by no means any kind of woo-woo empowerment-seeking homebirth crusader. I just knew that I didn’t belong in a hospital, and that I never would have had a c-section if I had been home the first time (which was definitely true . . I’m just a little bent inside and needed to be marched around til the baby was in the right place). But, and this is a big “but” that pisses people off, I think it’s not so much about morality and birthing choices as it is about your responsibility to keep your baby away from potentially harmful interventions and drugs, or even all the grossness that circulates in a hospital environment. Vaginal birth left me with pain and some small tears, but c-sections are fairly major abdominal surgery which has its own risks, and have become so commonplace that people think it’s perfectly normal and a fine alternative, or even a choice. I think you’ve illustrated that your situation, of course, is clearly in the corner of necessary interventions.

There are always cases for medical interventions — for both mothers and babies. Birth has been and will always be a killer. But I’m not convinced that the medical field and science can tell anyone, unequivocally, that epidurals, pitocin, c-sections, etc, have no effect on a newborn, either immediately or long-term. People have just kind of accepted the idea that we pump pharmaceuticals in our bodies for everything else, so what’s the big deal? I get that not everyone has a high threshold for pain, and I know things go wrong, but I think that parents spend so much time suffering to keep their kids safe and healthy, that if you had the choice to suffer for 24 hours (I know that longer labors are fucking miserable) just for your baby to avoid its first exposure to the vast swath of drugs and chemicals that await them anyway, why wouldn’t you?