My Baby Would Have Died if I had Birthed in the Hospital

The One-Sided Logic of Obstetric Omniscience

If you’re looking forward to your planned c-section so that you don’t have to go through the misery of childbirth, all the power to you.

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If you’re pregnant and you feel really good about getting 16 ultrasounds, amniocentesis, and all the genetic testing options available, wonderful.

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If you’re a woman who believes that it’s very important for your obstetrician to give you a pelvic exam and a pap smear every six months, have at it.

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If you feel strongly that having an induction at 39 weeks is essential for your baby’s wellbeing, great.

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If you believe that your medical provider is the highest authority over your body and your baby and that every decision you make should be approved by your obstetrician, Good for you.

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I would never personally make any of those choices—far too risky and dangerous for me.

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In my case, all ten of my babies would have died if I’d given birth to them at the hospital.

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They also would have died if I’d had a midwife present with me (only my first two were born in the presence of a quiet, hands-off, illegal, underground, traditional birth attendant—a woman who, recently, 20+ years after attending the births of my first and second babies, spent several months in jail—read my article about the ongoing persecution of Gloria Lemay here).

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Thankfully, I chose freebirth for my eight youngest, which surely saved my babies’ lives, and my own.

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That’s right—I probably would have died had I given birth in the hospital.

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How do I know freebirth saved me and my children, and that we would have perished in the institution?

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By exactly the same God-like omniscience possessed by every single woman who claims that her baby would have died had she given birth at home, of course.

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The difference, however, is that my choices, my beliefs, my values, my perspectives, and my worldview—even when (especially when?) those choices, beliefs, values, perspectives and worldview result in (or at least, one would assume, contribute to) the births of ten incredibly healthy babies—will be ridiculed, reviled, and held up as evidence of my insufficiency and negligence as a mother.

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Not just by society at large, or by the medical establishment, but most viciously, by individual women.

Almost daily, I have an exchange with a woman (either in-person or by writing, or in the comments in response to my social media posts) who informs me with an almost quaint degree of conviction and sincerity that had she given birth at home, either she or her baby (or both) would have died.

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Is that so?

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She then inevitably goes on to describe the dreaded outcome from which her brilliant team of medical professionals heroically saved her with their high-tech gew gahs—some version of: “Without the seventeen ultrasounds that caught the fact that my baby’s umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, he would have choked and died!”

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Golly. I mean…apart from a nuchal cord being a totally normal variation that isn’t even remotely dangerous in the vast majority of situations (babies are born with the cord around their necks in approximately 30% of all births —including for several of my own babies—and there is no “choking” when the baby is receiving all of their oxygen from the placenta)…sure.

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I don’t point this out—nor any of the questionable, outright ridiculous or highly implausible elements of their victim narrative. In fact, I don’t say anything at all. I smile and nod, and generously give them my time and attention as they ramble on.

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(I always think it goes without saying that of course there are some situations in which babies’ and mothers’ lives are saved by hospital technology and medical intervention, but it doesn’t, does it? I have to say it. So here I am, saying it. Feel free to write in to the complaint department anyway.)

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It wouldn’t be my place to call out their areas of cognitive dissonance, of course (and I actually try to be fairly consistently courteous in my interpersonal exchanges), but I am also well aware that the last thing these mothers want is their cherished maternal fairy tale origin story contradicted—the story of having been rescued by a white-coated knight in shining scrubs.

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After all, their obstetric drama might be as close as some of these women come to feeling like a real princess. Who am I to rain on your parade?

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Wait up—I’m being cruel, you say? Maybe. I’m no saint. Not even close. Quite the opposite. I, like everyone, have unkind thoughts. But it’s also true—and the truth is ruthless—and apart from speaking in generalities as I am here, I keep it to myself in polite company.

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I also stand by the truth however it lands, and I believe, ultimately, in absolute freedom of speech.

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This means I have to fundamentally respect the right of those who write in to me to tell me I’m a sick, deranged, despicable human being, and that my birth choices make me an unfit mother. This is clearly what they believe to be true about me, and they have a right to think it, and to express it, however vulgar and unhinged they come across as being.

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Of course, I immediately block these individuals online, and I delete any and all abusive comments posted to my profile (along with stupid, irritating, whiny, sanctimonious, and self-righteous comments, and really anything that isn’t edifying or interesting in some way—as is my right).

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People tend to be a little bit less outrageously rude face-to-face, but online, it’s standard for the women who stop by my profile to defend their obstetric experiences, to end their lengthy rationalization with some version of the following:

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Because I and my child came so close to death only to be dramatically revived by my amazing doctor, you are, therefore, clearly a terrible, bad, irresponsible mother for not submitting yourself to the same forms of surveillance and obstetric histrionics that I did!

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At times this standard libretto is delivered with some attempt at subtlety (I would have felt so uncomfortable taking the kind of risk you did, you’re SO lucky your kids were ok) but often it’s entirely shameless and overt.

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You should have your children taken away from you, is a recommendation that has become almost familiar.

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However the message is conveyed, the subtext is that I am insanely reckless to have gambled with my life and that of my child’s in a way that reasonable women would simply never consider doing.

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But wait…my kids are already born. All ten of them have actually already been born safely (several years ago, in a couple of cases). They made it! They’re all alive and well and immensely healthy.

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You—my dear critic, detractor, or troll-- almost seem mad about that.

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You’re clearly mad about that.

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A good percentage of you are evidently mad about that.

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Why? Why does it seem as though you’re almost disappointed that my children have not only survived but thrived?

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It’s always framed as concern, of course—you’re endangering the lives of your kids!!

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The imputation made by these strangers is that they are just so deeply concerned about my children’s well-being that they must speak up.

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I know what this is. And it has nothing to do with any purported worries about my children’s health or survival.

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You don’t actually care about my kids at all, internet stranger.

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You care about the fact that your conceptualization of reality and the fragile mental constructs you’ve built up to justify your own choices are being threatened by mine.

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You’re triggered because my choices force you to face your own cognitive dissonance. My choices force you to feel that flicker of awareness that there might actually be some logical inconsistencies to your own story.

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What all of this invariably—inarguably—proves, is that you doubt the validity of your choices. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be bothered by mine, let alone go out of your way to troll me.

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If it were indeed true that *aliveness* at any cost was the number one goal, the prime directive, and the gold standard—which is what many of these people (and the industry they so vociferously defend) will claim (though these are often the same people who champion abortion, nevermind that), then what’s you problem?

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Despite the fact that I (and my kids) have already experienced the positive outcome of my choices, I am still, in the eyes of these dimwits guilty of almost (but…not quite, as in, not in any way) killing my children. In the past. In a version of the past that doesn’t exist...

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Along with the sense of a seemingly ardent desire for retroactive delusional judgement on an outcome that never occured, is a kind of future-projected schadenfreude.

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I regularly hear from people who say things like “you’ve just been lucky…hopefully your next kid doesn’t die.”

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Really? It almost sounds like you hope they do.

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One dedicated nurse (it’s so frequently the nurses) recently came to inform me that I’m “blinded by survivor’s bias.”

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Lol! I love it. I actually do love how hilarious intense stupidity really is.

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But in a way, she has a point. Why do any of us keep driving our little metal death-boxes on wheels around at great speed? Survivor’s bias.

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Why do any of us keep eating breakfast every morning? Survivor’s bias.

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Why do any of us bother not to just jump off the end of the pier? Survivor’s bias is the only plausible explanation.

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Three cheers for survivor’s bias! It’s our only hope.

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I jest, of course.

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God is our only hope.

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God gave us a world in which each and every choice we make, has, not just a consequence for us and our children and our individual families, but a ripple across time and space.

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God gave us a world that expands in complexity (and contracts in fear) based on our choices and our acts of God-given creative, destructive, and salvific works.

One of the most devastating messages I received recently, was from A high-risk OB Ultrasound tech (and I know they’re a high-risk OB Ultrasound tech because they announced it as though this were something to be proud of—it’s also so often the high-risk OB ultrasound techs).

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“Would you not want to know if your baby has a critical heart defect that could be lifesaving? Or any other anomaly? I guess not after 10 kids. You’ve gotten lucky.”