Still not here...

The visit to the doctor's office yesterday was a little frusturating. She finally did a pelvic exam. Our boy appears to be situated pretty high up, which basically means even if we wanted to induce labor he may not be ready yet. This does not mean I could not go into labor at any time, it just means that we won't be trying anything fancy to "encourage" his arrival until at least the 16th. This also just might mean somebody gets G's Bob Dylan ticket to the Wiltern... sorry hon!

I finally got around to reading Cathy Seipp's excellent article in Reason on the current state of feminism. Great writing. I especially enjoyed the part on Naomi Wolf's terrible book Misconceptions. Someone actually recommended it to me right when I got pregnant. Luckily I got it from the library. Unlucky for the library, I practically threw it across the room. It truly sets women up for an antagonistic relationship with her OB/Gyn. As I see it being pregnant let alone being able to have the baby in the hospital, birthing center or wherever I want is a privilege and not a right. Here's a nice excerpt:

Even deadlier was the reaction last fall to Naomi Wolf’s Misconceptions, a mesmerizingly nutty polemic about what she calls "the hidden truths behind giving birth in America today." (That’s compared to the sheer delight of giving birth in the rest of the world, of course.)...

Now that the standard polite flip-through of the neighbors’ hospital baby pictures means viewing a bloody color close-up of baby’s emerging head and mom’s genitalia, you may wonder just what truths about giving birth are still hidden. But perhaps you had no idea that pregnant women "in our culture" (to use Wolf’s favorite phrase) often have Cesareans, even when they’d hoped not to; that they are typically exhausted and sometimes feel like they’re losing their minds; that new moms still get up more than new dads to deal with howling infants in the middle of the night; or that maternity clothes tend to be unstylish, with a cruel lack of selection in Western wear.

Yes, she’s serious about that one. "You could not be a cowgirl and a mother," Wolf observes glumly, describing another day "mourning the loss of the young woman I had been" while rifling the racks at the mall. "You could not be a heartbreaker and a mother....You could not, in our culture, easily pair motherhood with many other alluring archetypes."

As opposed to what other culture? Are there really maternity shops selling Annie Get Your Gun outfits in Iraq or India? But Wolf remains starry-eyed about the obstetrical wonders of the non-American world...

Wolf speaks to many relatively unnecessary interventions when it comes to giving birth in the United States. What she fails to speak to is the fact that most women do not choose to educate themselves prior to or during pregnancy and that simply asking a doctor to follow your birth plan or clearly stating your desire for a natural birth can prevent these interventions from occuring. Wolf puts the power and responsibility into the hands of the medical professionals instead of the mothers-to-be. I see no reason, unless the baby or the mother's health is at risk, that every woman cannot have the birth experience that she desires. I suppose I'll have to get back to this once I've actually birthed this baby.

I promise to let you all know the minute we're headed for the hospital, thanks for all the love and support.

Posted by Molli at October 05, 2002 12:53 PM