Good Enough Page 2

  EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER

  Two pink lines are staring back at me from the pregnancy test. You’re pregnant, you fertile fox! it announces, followed by, Prepare yourself for a caesarean! No, it’s not some super-clever device that can accurately predict what’s going to happen down the track (wouldn’t that be awesome?), but at that very moment I am already certain that the only way this baby is coming into the world is by having a pair of middle-aged hands slide on in through my sunroof and pluck her the hell out of my womb. I don’t see a problem with this so I make my intentions clear to everyone from the start – taking extra precautions to impress this nugget of information upon my obstetrician the first chance I get.

  ‘Doctor Albert, I would like a caesarean please,’ I casually request at my first prenatal appointment, somehow making it sound as though I’m merely choosing a dessert from a menu. Doctor Albert leans back in his chair and looks me over thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, and why is that, Dilvin?’ Taking a deep breath, I launch into a sorry saga about my scoliosis (my spine is bent into an S-shape), the fact that no woman in my family has been able to birth vaginally and just generally, about how terrified I am of the whole freakin’ process (I don’t mention the pack of hungry wolves). ‘I see . . .’ he says as he stares off into the distance pensively like he’s starring in a Rick Astley video. ‘You do know caesarean sections aren’t without risk, don’t you?’ he asks, incredibly serious in his manner. ‘Oh, absolutely!’ I exclaim. ‘I work for a pregnancy magazine – I know everything there is to know about caesareans so believe me when I tell you I’m making an informed choice.’ This is true. I have interviewed every birthing expert in Australia in my time there so it’s not like I’m going into this blindfolded. Doctor Albert studies me for a bit longer but eventually pushes over the consent papers and some information leaflets. ‘I know you’re well versed in what the procedure entails but I think you should take these home and read them anyway.’ I throw them in my bag and nod in agreement as I sign my name on the dotted line. Immediately I feel like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Phew!

  Once I have a date locked in, that’s when I notice the game change. I’ve never been shy about making my birth plan public, but now that it’s real and ‘happening’, every man and his dog wants to weigh in with an opinion about what a horrible, selfish mother I am. ‘I don’t understand what the hell is wrong with you!’ says my brother Dave for the umpteenth time, as he visits one afternoon. ‘As a woman, don’t you want to experience giving birth?’ He is shocked that I would want to miss out on the seemingly fantastic opportunity of squeezing something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a lemon. Clutching my fists, I stare evenly back at him. ‘I don’t know, Dave, don’t you want to experience having someone hit a rusty nail through your penis to prove to yourself you’re a man?’ I shoot back. The atmosphere is tense that evening but I hear the same sentiments echoed everywhere I go. ‘Oh, I’d do anything for my children, even go through all that pain,’ says one woman at a barbecue, tone implying that I wouldn’t. I just smile tightly and change the subject even though I long to slap her across the face with a pair of leather gloves.

  So here’s what I know about caesarean births so far: I know the rate of Australian women having them is skyrocketing – 31.6 per cent in 2010 compared with 25.4 per cent in 2001 (well above the World Health Organization’s recommendations that C-section births should not be higher than 10–15 per cent). It’s more prevalent in private hospitals (27 per cent) than in public (18 per cent) and midwives are quick to blame this erroneously on golf-happy obstetricians keen to schedule in births to keep their private time free. This is not the case – obstetricians just tend to be more risk-averse. And I know that while caesareans enable patients to plan the birth, reduce the risk of injury to pelvic muscles and allow the safe delivery of high-risk babies, the risk of maternal death or injury is also higher, as is the chance your baby will end up in neonatal intensive care with breathing difficulties (but often only if baby is delivered before 39 weeks). I know all of this, but nothing changes the fact I am utterly petrified of giving birth, and cannot – will not – entertain the idea of having this baby any other way. It has nothing to do with desecrating my husband’s much-loved playground (‘I suppose it would be a little like watching your favourite pub burn down,’ concedes Lee when I ask him about it) or being ‘too posh to push’; I am literally struck down with fear and I certainly don’t see my choice as anything to be ashamed of or hide from people. But somehow I get the feeling I should.

  While I’d had a clear idea of how I wanted my birth to unfold since the age of five, ie safe and snug in an operating theatre, I’m fairly sure I’m in a different category to what’s become quite a phenomenon among mums-to-be these days. You may have heard of the term ‘birthzilla’. It’s a term that was only coined recently, but it’s a behaviour that’s been around quite a while. The practice of obsessing over a birth plan and identifying ways to make your experience ‘perfect’, or just so much better than everyone else’s, the trend has picked up speed in recent years. Back in our mothers’ day it was all about how much pain you suffered (‘I laboured for five days straight and they wouldn’t give me so much as a Panadol’ and ‘Since I had my baby five years ago, I can’t even wee straight’ – you get the idea). But today? Among the ‘birthzillas’, it’s all a massive competition about how well you coped and how damned wonderful everything was. ‘The baby weighed 4.8kg and I laboured for 32 hours but I made sure I gave birth vaginally with no drugs!’, ‘Oh, giving birth was nothing! It just felt like a bit of faint period pain!’ and ‘I enjoyed giving birth so much, I almost orgasmed with every contraction!’ That’s not me getting all trigger-happy on the exclamation marks, either, this is how they’re often squealed at innocent bystanders (and journalists) by these kinds of women.

  I guess it’s to be expected, but celebrities like to weigh in from time to time with their (always wonderful) stories. ‘It didn’t hurt in the slightest,’ revealed model Gisele Bündchen after her eight-hour home birth. ‘It was more like meditation,’ said Jessica Alba of her ‘amazing’ birth. My personal favourite is when Kate Winslet admitted publicly that she had lied to the media about having a vaginal birth with her firstborn because she was so ‘traumatised’ over her caesarean. ‘I’ve never talked about this. I’ve actually gone to great pains to cover it up. But Mia was an emergency C-section. I just said that I had a natural birth because I was so completely traumatised by the fact that I hadn’t given birth. I felt like a complete failure . . . I felt like, in some way that I couldn’t join that “powerful women’s club”.’ Fortunately for Winslet, she gained entry into womanhood some years later when she gave birth again – this time vaginally. ‘It was an amazing feeling having Joe naturally, vaginally. Fourteen hours with no drugs at all, but then I had to have an epidural because I was so tired. I honestly thought I’d never be able to do it. It was an incredible birth. It laid all the ghosts to rest. It was really triumphant.’ Quite. Well thank Christ for that, now we can all sleep better at night.

  It often feels like unless you have a perfect, drug-free vaginal birth, you’re not a very accomplished mother. Hell, you’re not even a very good mother. At work whenever I did a callout for mums to email me their birth stories my inbox would be full of women who define themselves by the type of birth they had (evident from their signature or website they’d invariably send me the link to). You know the type – Josie, 34, free-birthed Benjamin, 18 months, and Jupiter, 3. I would have home birthers, calm birthers, active birthers, women with stories about giving birth to ridiculously large babies without the need for pain relief!!!! (their words and punctuation, not mine), but never would I hear from the women who’d had a C-section (unless they’d laboured for 46 hours first and it became an emergency, they would tell me sheepishly, almost embarrassed by their perceived failure). No hands up from women who used every drug under the sun, no epidural stories – nothing. It’s only after I
’d do a second callout and change the text to read, ‘looking for women who’ve had a caesarean delivery or had gas, pethidine and epidural or all of the above’ that I would get a response from these women. If I enquired any further, they would respond, ‘I didn’t think you’d want to hear from someone like me.’ Someone like me – seriously. I couldn’t help but notice these women never had a link to their websites, no ‘Catherine, mother of Ruby, via C-section’ in their email signatures. It was almost as though it was their dirty secret to hide, and that their birthing experience wasn’t valid.

  But you see, here’s the thing about giving birth: going through hours and hours of prolonged agony doesn’t make you a better mother, nor does having a quick operation; the real trick is what you do with your baby once it gets here. You may feel like you’ve missed out on the experience of birthing vaginally, and while most medical professionals are in favour of everybody having the birth they want (within safe guidelines), it helps to remember that for millions of women around the world, their only birth plan is to not die. So let’s keep some perspective on what a First-World creation this really is and screw the dolphin sounds CDs and ancient singing balls.

  In the end, I am really fortunate and recover from my caesarean quickly – I’m up and about the next day, walking from my hospital room to a nearby cafe with Cella to have a well-deserved cup of coffee, and the pain medication stops soon after. I count my lucky stars things have gone so well. I feel so great that by the time I check out, I don’t bother filling the prescription for Panadeine Forte they’ve given me. Just like I’d imagined back when I was five years old, I practically tap-danced out of the hospital with a baby in my hands. I’m not saying this to beat my chest and pass myself off as some kind of hero because I know a lot of women don’t have such a positive experience, but in case you’ve noticed a lack of encouraging caesarean stories out there, I have one and I want people to hear it.

  As for what happened next, well, that’s another story . . .

  Why do so many women turn into birthzillas?

  Q&A with Doctor Gino Pecoraro, Obstetrics & Gynaecology spokesperson for the federal Australian Medical Association.

  Why do you think some women feel so traumatised if they have an emergency C-section and miss out on the experience of giving birth?

  It’s complicated, but one of the major reasons we know of is that people often find it difficult to relinquish control in a world where you’re taught you must always be in control. The problem here of course is that when it comes to the human body and the process of giving birth, there’s very little you can have any influence over, and that 20-centimetre canal the baby goes down is often described as the most dangerous journey you’ll ever take in your life. Another reason women feel traumatised is they build up how the birth is going to happen in their heads and if they think about it often enough, they’ll eventually come to focus on the journey rather than the outcome. Taking this into consideration, I often think we’re the victims of our own success – two short generations ago having women and babies die during the birthing process was not at all unusual and women have forgotten this. You’ve got to remember giving birth is not like a movie scene where everyone has a script – your baby certainly hasn’t read it and won’t know how to act accordingly.

  Birth plans – are they a waste of time?

  It’s always useful to consider how you might like things to go and to spend a lot of time with your obstetrician or midwife posing questions, but it’s never a good idea to set your heart on something. Also, I strongly caution against presenting your birth plan to your obstetrician typed on coloured paper, sprayed with perfume and bound with ribbon like it’s gospel. If you do this, it’s an absolute recipe for disaster because it will often end in disappointment and a sense of feeling cheated. The very best birth plan you can have is to say, ‘I want to know what’s going on, I want to be comfortable and safe, and I want a healthy baby at the end of it.’ That’s all.

  Why do you think how you give birth has become such a competitive sport among many mums?

  Everything comes down to media influence and the fact that reality has been sacrificed on the altar of reality TV. Women today see one of the Kardashians give birth on Foxtel and think, ‘Gee, that looks nice, I’d love my delivery to be like that,’ but what they don’t realise is that everything has been carefully crafted by a public relations crew! It’s certainly been my experience when looking after high-profile patients that what they put out publicly and what really goes on rarely, if ever, correlates. And if I’m going to be brutally honest, women are also quite competitive by nature so this is just one more avenue where they feel like they can strike blows and claim scalps.

  What are some of the pros and cons of C-sections and vaginal births?

  Pros of C-sections

  * Control over when the baby arrives and how long the birth will take.

  * No chance of infecting the baby with an STD the mother may have.

  * Safer for the mother when the pregnancy is complicated.

  * Less traumatic for victims of sexual abuse.

  * Alleviation of fear.

  * Less pain during the birth.

  Cons of C-sections

  * It’s a real operation with risk of haemorrhaging, complications and problems with anaesthesia.

  * If the surgeon is inexperienced, other risks may include damaging the bowel or bladder during surgery or cutting too deeply and scratching the baby.

  * Post-operative pain and immobility.

  * Respiratory problems can occur with the baby.

  Pros of vaginal births

  * It’s the way nature intended and if all goes well, you’ll be up and walking around quickly.

  * A lowered risk of respiratory problems for bub.

  * Your baby will ingest a protective bacteria as they make their way through the birth canal.

  Cons of vaginal births

  * It’s painful.

  * Can result in tearing and episiotomies which are also painful.

  * A breech position can cause distress to a baby, and a C-section will often be recommended.

  What’s the best advice you could give pregnant women about their birthing choices?

  There’s no right or wrong way to give birth – there’s only the way that’s right for you. Do your research early; attend birthing classes so you know what to expect; and talk over your concerns with your doctor, but be flexible and realistic. There’s no use in saying you want a drug-free vaginal delivery if you have placenta praevia, for example. Trust in the people looking after you – your obstetrician will have studied a good 15 years to impart their wisdom and knowledge and a few lines you read on a website is no match for this experience. And if you don’t get the birth you want, that’s okay. Just remember you’re only in labour for one day and that’s no reason to let the disappointment from this affect the rest of your life.

  I get really bloody depressed

  It’s the final night of my stay in Baby Rehab, AKA Tresillian’s five-night residential stay program (Tresillian is a NSW-based family care service) and I’m sitting awkwardly in a circle of mismatched chairs. There are broken people to my left, broken people to my right. To an outsider, we might look as though we’re about to hold a séance. Or conduct an AA meeting with slightly more comfortable furniture. But they’d be waaaaay wrong. Instead, with a psychologist at the helm ticking things off pages on a brown clipboard, we’re going around the circle telling the most harrowing tales of the parenting experience I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear.

  The introductions start like they would in any group therapy situation. ‘Hi, my name is Becky, this is John, and we have a sixteen-week-old who just doesn’t want to sleep.’ ‘Hi Becky and John,’ the group responds in unison, exchanging shy smiles across the room. But as the session picks up speed and people become comfortable with the subject matter, the stifling layers of societal constraints are shed and things quickly slide into an emotional free-for-all. ‘I
live in constant fear I’m going to come home from work and find my wife and baby dead,’ admits one dad, sobbing into the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Once I came in to find Isabella sleeping on her stomach and my heart leaped into my throat,’ cries another. ‘I thought Jane had finally done It.’ Couples hold hands so tightly their knuckles turn white and most people are either openly crying (mostly the men), or staring at their feet, numb and exhausted by the toll caring for a baby has taken on them (the women). In this group, ‘I hate my baby’ and ‘I wish I’d never had him’ are common sentiments, and instead of being met with disapproving glances and a chorus of high-pitched, sing-song ‘Ohhhh, you don’t mean thaaaat,’ they only get empathetic smiles and nods of the head because most of us in that room either actively hate or have at some point hated our babies, too. For the one in seven Aussie mums affected by postnatal depression, this is what motherhood looks like.

  Eleven weeks earlier my daughter Cella had come into the world screaming and from that moment on, barely paused for breath. Blame it on a lifetime of watching soppy Hollywood movies, but I, like most other pregnant women on the planet, had bought into the dream that the moment they placed my firstborn in my arms for the first time, my heart would burst with love and pride. So imagine my surprise when they hand over my precious bundle and I feel absolutely . . . nothing. Clutching onto her tightly for the obligatory birth photos, I can only stare at this strange creature in shock, vaguely aware of a sense of numbness descending over me like a thick fog. Perhaps I’m just exhausted, I tell myself. Or maybe I’m surprised by this pale, fair-haired, blue-eyed baby who looks nothing like me (several years on, I’m still convinced people who see me out and about with her assume I’m her ethnic nanny). Baby Cella just stares back at me, eyebrows furrowed, looking like she’s just been made the victim of a really bad joke and she is not amused. ‘I know this sounds strange, honey,’ I whisper to Lee as we peer anxiously at her scowling face, ‘but it looks like she’s not very happy to be here.’ Lee just gives me a cuddle and goes off to sign paperwork while I try to make sense of what I’m feeling, or to be more accurate, what I’m not feeling. This is ridiculous! I tell myself. No, I must just be exhausted. I need a little rest, that’s all. Right? RIGHT?