I must say, the more I watch baby tv the more annoyed I get by most of them. House of Babies is a good one – I really love the way it’s all natural and it’s never displayed as some ultra big emergency like in some of the other shows… like the one that’s on TV currently – in a low, serious, foreboding voice, “So far, she’s handling the pain,” when referring to a medication-free childbirth. As if it’s only a matter of time before she’s “needs” medication.

But watching more – and from all different shows: Baby Baby, House of Babies, A Baby Story, Babies: Special Delivery, etc – really are giving me a better perspective about what I want and what I don’t. I’m really seeing the difference between the hospital births and the birthing center births. For one thing the attitude of the nurses/doctors is different. But most of all just the surroundings is so different. I feel much more comforted watching a birth in a bedroom-like situation, whether they’re birthing in the tub (which we won’t be doing) or in the bed. It’s a real BED. You look around and you feel kind of homey, comfortable. In contrast, the hospital births are surrounded by monitors and wires and nurses bustling in and out. And I swear to god, if I have to give birth in a room that has all those beeps outloud from all those machines I will kill someone. They irritate the fuck out of me even when I’m NOT the one giving birth – and I’m not even there! I don’t even know what all those sounds are (other than the obvious audio of the fetal heartbeat).

Not saying I’m totally against giving birth in a hospital – what has to happen will happen – but I want all those monitors to be turned away from me and silenced and NOT hooked up to me unless they NEED to be. When I was hooked up to the IV for my surgery I felt like I couldn’t move my hand. Den said I could. I knew, logically, you’re allowed to. But it freaked me out enough that I felt like I had to remain perfectly still lest I disturb it. And I just don’t want any distractions when I’m focusing on giving birth. I don’t want things to worry about, to weigh me down. I will need to concentrate and stay in my own little world.

I also feel like the midwifes are much more equipped to deal with problems without immediately turning to pitocin or a c-section. There have been some situations on that show that in a hospital would almost certainly have caused a c-section, but Sheri was able to turn the baby gently herself and facilitate a natural delivery.

I also hate that in hospital births (the ones on TV at least) the baby is born and they hold the baby up “here’s your baby!” and then off they go. I’m sitting here getting agitated, almost yelling at the TV, “WTF! Give her the baby!!” Again, I’m not opposed to them taking the baby in the case of an emergency – but I want it to be because of an actual emergency!

Just random thoughts from my brain.