autonomous birth: options

being in central turkey
where english speaking doctors
are rare,
our OBgyn’s english was minimally passable,
and a bit better than our turkish.
at least she was a woman,
which also seemed to be somewhat rare in these parts.
the other staff’s english skills was close nil.
i’m not saying that they should speak english,
but this was the environment we were swimming in.

i was glad to meet my OB
after dealing with the local clinic or saglik ocagi,
in which we had to have an interpreter,
be it one we brought
– usually a coworker from ishaq’s school –
or a clinic employee who spoke a spattering of english.

according to what i was told
this is how you have a baby in central turkey:
you register the pregnancy with your local clinic,
and get checkups there on a regular basis
– usually it turned out to be just
blood pressure and weight –
and see your chosen OB at a hospital as well.
you should report your OB’s findings to the local clinic.
after you have the baby,
the midwives from the clinic come and check up on you and baby at home.
later you bring the baby by the clinic for the standard vaccinations and test,
like the heel-stick test
that i feel is almost torture,
at least for me to hear my baby screaming, it is.
what! prick my baby’s heel
in order to squeeze some blood out on some little circles!
there MUST be a less painful way.

another part of the equation was that
i’ve never given birth in a hospital before,
and can count my hospital visits one hand,
no, probably 1 finger.
i’ve had 3 homebirths.

i’m the type to research my options.
there was no library available,
but i had a few local women i could communicate with
and internet resources,
including naturalbirthturkey yahoo group.
from these resources
it seemed that my options were to
(1) have baby in a local hospital,
(2) leave the country and do as i please,
(3) do as those kooky foreigners do
and bring in midwife from abroad to do a homebirth, or
(4) find that one doctor in all of turkey
who will allow you to birth naturally
outside of the hospital protocols.

option 1:
the thought of simply letting myself ride
on an unfamiliar current
of the status quo
– the “when in rome…” thing –
because it’s what the women do here
did not sit with me well, at all.
being in a hospital (unfamiliar protocols)
where i did not speak the language well (unfamiliar medium of communication)
only made the following come to mind:
fear + tension = pain
and that i have so much fear and tension,
that i’d “fail to progress”
and end up getting a cesarean
like an all-to-high percentage of the women here.

i also felt that by not speaking the language well,
either i’d have to have a volunteer interpreter with me during the birth,
or take the chance that because of the frustration
or the bother of native-turkish speakers trying to speak english
during the intense time of labor and delivery
that what options i did have would be co-opted due to expediency or whatever.

i also didn’t feel comfortable with the thought of
being tethered to an IV-drip on a metal pole
while walking around in a blue hospital gown
– they are more modest here though:
ankle-length with snaps on the sides,
instead of opening in the back –
and forced to give birth in (the dreaded) stirrups
due to the doctor’s convenience.

option 2:
i didn’t want to be away from husband
– who has been such a spiritual help and motivator
during previous labors/births –
and my girls in order to have this baby.
the idea of me traveling to give birth
seemed as unnecessary and absurd to me,
as it would to my 2 year old
when she sees her mommy returning after an absence
with wiggling-crying-something that everybody is calling a “baby”.
plus we’d have to deal with the relatively minor issue of
someone taking care of the girls while ishaq was working.

i found out about options 3 and 4
from the naturalbirthturkey yahoo group.
i emailed a traveling midwife that the yahoo group owner suggested.
she charged a reasonable $1500,
but on top of (again reasonable) travel expenses and a few other minor fees.

as for as option 4, again, even though it was in turkey,
again, i didn’t want to be away from my family.

i also came across a fifth option:
autonomous birthing at home.
more commonly called “unassisted birth”
because of the “lack” of professionals,
i prefer autonomous birth or self-delivery
because it doesn’t imply that there is something missing.
thus began my journey on this new path.