Don't Have a Cow

This weekend I visited two places where living things are born- the Fair Oaks Farms in Fair, Oaks, Indiana and Rush University Medical Center in Chicago- and wanted to share a few observations about birthing experiences. We stumbled across the Fair Oaks Farm (FOF) on our way home from a tennis tournament in Indianapolis. I noticed a brochure for the place while filing up my gas tank in the adjacent gas station, and thought that my son, Leo, who is nearly2, might enjoy the diversion to break the monotony of the long drive from Indy to Chicago. The FOF is actually a big business; tickets for adults are $10 and entitle one to take a bus tour of the facility and to access to the “birthing center.” I was curious, but not curious enough to pay $20 for us to enter, so we kind of just slid in past a traffic signal which was green and said “head”, and in through the exit.

A surreal, only-in-the-Hoosier state moment awaited us: a hushed, darkened auditorium full of (mostly obese) people snacking as though in a cinema with their eyes transfixed on two colossal cows in labor behind a glass enclosure. One of the cows was actually in the process of pushing the calf out, while the other appeared to still be timing her contractions and waiting for her epidural. My wife, Jen, who is 8 months pregnant, remarked that she “was glad she didn’t have to go through labor in front of a crowd of curious onlookers.” Of course, the entire scene was ghastly, and I did not stick around to cut the umbilical cord, but I was fascinated from a sociological perspective about why people would pay good money to witness this kind of spectacle. I was also curious to know why several of the middle aged men in attendance were wearing white Fruit of the Loom-like undershirts, shorts, and dark, knee-high dress socks with black dress shoes, but I never received any insights into either trend.

With this undignified birthing experience still fresh in our minds, we scheduled a tour of the maternity ward at Rush U.H. in Chicago, where our insurance company suggests we bring our second son into this world later this summer. Two summers ago, I took a tour of a different hospital, that a different insurance company “recommended” for us to bring our first son into the world, and was dismayed to be stuck on a tour with a collection of, pardon the vulgarity, dumb asses who dragged the session out with questions like, “should I bring my own slippers?” So on this tour, I was relieved to see that there was only one other couple- who coincidentally shared our due date- ready to “tour” with us. The woman looked to be in her late 30’s, and was dressed for a Phish concert. Her husband/boyfriend/fiancé/sperm donor bore a serious expression and had a haircut like Brüno, circa the Da Ali G Show days. I should have been concerned by the fact that he was carrying pen and paper but I simply failed to see the signs. I knew we were in for an interesting tour though when the woman told Jen that she was “planning a homebirth, but was at the hospital just to check it out.”
Our tour leader was a very kind, matronly young woman- exactly the kind of person you’d want to help you through labor- who took pains to tell us about any potential downsides to giving birth at Rush. Each of these potential downsides- which seemed trifling to us- was a source of major angst for the homebirth couple. Homebirth mama (HM) was outraged when the guide mentioned that it was standard for the baby to be taken perhaps an hour or so after birth, to the nursery for an hour to have a bath and undergo some basic tests, including a hearing test and others. The guide tried to reassure her that she’d have time to bond with the baby first, and that the father could accompany the child to the nursery, but hm wasn’t mollified. It doesn’t make sense, why can’t the mother go? Well, because you’ll still be bleeding, etc, etc, the guide explained quite rationally, but again, this did not seem to sit well, as hm seemed to be convinced that the hospital was involved in some diabolical plot to sell the infant’s organs or put them in a BabyGap ad or something. Once she laid to rest the issue of her accompanying the newborn to the nursery, she wanted to know what tests she was entitled to refuse, once again, the premise being that the doctor’s are testing the child’s hearing and other functions simply to subject them to cruel and unusual punishment.

Husband/boyfriend/fiancé/sperm donor was similarly militant and no-nonsense. He would fire off questions- like, can we get a walking epidural? And then, seemingly, write down every word of the response as though he were a court reporter at a trial. I had the distinct impression that the homebirth couple were preparing a lawsuit, even all the while vowing not to give birth in the place. Hm clucked disapprovingly when she saw that the labor rooms didn’t have “birthing tubs”, but was reassured to know that her doula, and indeed whomever else she wanted in the room with her was welcome. Bring your shrink, I thought. “Are the nurses and doctors open to alternative positions and stuff?” she wanted to know. “Oh yeah, definitely,” the guide replied, “we had a woman recently who gave birth on all fours.” “That’s awesome,” hm commented approvingly, with the clear conviction that non-traditional= good, and traditional = bad.

Now I know that having a healthy degree of skepticism for the medical profession and for the baby-factory approach that many hospitals take these days is warranted, and I’m all for trying to do things the natural/organic way. But when it comes to my wife’s health and the health and well being of my unborn son, I’m not really down with going retro and kicking it old school with towels and bandages in our bedroom. Every birth is different, but my first son, Leo was all about hanging on in the womb until the last possible moment- and he eventually had to be “vaccumed” out of the womb after an exhausting 3 hours of pushing. It was a stressful birth for both mother and child and could not have been predicted based upon a very uneventful pregnancy. There is no way I would have wanted to, as they say in show business, “try this at home.” Nor would I have wanted to try to move to a hospital once the going got tough half-way through. But this is America, and everyone has the right to do as they please. If I had to do it all over again though, I’d certainly prefer to be born in a hospital- not a home, and certainly not in a bail of hay, in front of an auditorium full of hoosiers.