The Fruit of the Tree of Life

I walked through wide open fields, mists of fog, along a flowing river,
until I came to a path that ran straight and true.
Culminating in a hill topped with a tree,
laden with heavy fruit.
It was pure and ripe, full of sweetness in its plump rosy flesh.
Delicious to the taste, desirable above all other fruits.
The fruit therof promised new life, full of wonder.
Ripe for the picking.

As I looked across the expanse of the hilltop,
I saw families gathering.
Fathers supporting mothers who like the tree were heavy laden and round.
Children watched as the process of new life unfolded before them.
Mothers leaned into their husbands,
and clinging, found support from a rod of iron leading to the tree.
A few looked distracted, their attention pulled from their task.

I followed their gaze to a large building off in the distance.
From the windows of the building, women leaned jeering with IVs in their arms.
Others, bedridden, looked from their beds to the women under the shade of the tree and scoffed.
Orderlies and attendants in white and shades of blue, hands covered in latex, mouths obscured by masks, too assumed the manner of mocking those beneath the tree.

The ashamed left their pleasant spot and found the path to the spacious building
where they joined the ranks of IV inserted, bed ridden, hermetically garbed.
There they were cut open, blood pouring from their wound. The pure fruit of their womb stained and bloodied.
Once sutured, they were expelled from the building in shame and hurt.
Then drowned in the depths of their sorrow.

While those undeterred by the jeers and mockery, birthed their babies in bliss and security.
And truly came to know the deliciousness of the fruit of love.

What they don't tell you about CSections

In a recent Mothering Magazine article, the writer shares the following risks of C Section, which often are undisclosed to women when being told they need one.

1. A woman is five to seven times more likely to die from a cesarean delivery than from a vaginal delivery.

2. A woman having a repeat C-section is twice as likely to die during delivery.

3. Twice as many women require rehospitalization after a C-section than after a vaginal birth.

4. Having a C-section means higher rates of infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and potentially severe placental problems in future pregnancies.

5. Babies born after an elective cesarean delivery (i.e., when labor has not yet begun) are four times more likely to develop persistent pulmonary hypertension, a potentially life-threatening condition.

6. Between one and two babies of every hundred delivered by C-section will be accidentally cut during the surgery.

7. The US is tied for second-to-last place with Hungary, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia for neonatal mortality in the industrialized world.

8. Babies born via C-section are at high risk for not receiving the benefits of breastfeeding.

9. The risk of death to a newborn delivered by C-section to a low-risk woman is 1.77 deaths to 1,000 live births. The risk of death to a newborn delivered vaginally to a low-risk woman is only 0.62 per 1,000 live births.

See full article here.

Another finding that greatly disturbed me since it affected me personally is that women are more likely to experience ectopic pregnancies or spontaneous abortions in subsequent pregnancies after a C Section. Women who previously had a C-section are more likely to have a stillborn child in subsequent pregnancies.

That finidng cuts me to the quick because I was born a C-Section baby (not medically necessary, breech presentation) and my mother's next pregnancy, my little brother, ended in a stillbirth. I don't feel guilt, persay, for being a C-section baby. Its not my fault that the US maternity care system in 1984 (and now) doesn't know how to birth breech babies, and it wasn't my fault that my mother wasn't more informed. But I feel hurt and in some way that my birth was tarnished and my only sibling lost because of something that involved me. Learning that finding brought the grief of knowing that I had a little brother and lost him back into my mind and more painful now that I know what having a child is all about.

I grieve for my mother all over again that she had to deal with the recovery from major abdominal surgery while adjusting to life with a newborn and then two years later face depression and grief when her second child died before being born.

I feel empathy for those women who regret the C-sections they've had or who had one and didn't want it, because those women shoulder the guilt, anger and sometimes trauma of that experience which is then compounded when their next birth and pregnancy does not yield a healthy baby.

They don't tell you that these things can happen (and more frequently do) when offering the consent form and schedulign for a C-section. Imagine what the C-section rate would be in this country if they did.