Combine childbirth with Murphy's Law and you get the experience of one young woman who delivered her baby in the wheelchair on the way into the hospital at 4 a.m. one morning.
"I saw her holding herself up above the seat of the wheelchair, screaming, understandably, 'The baby is coming!' while the right leg of her black Spandex pants was growing by the second," recalls Dr. Christian Pope of Healthcare for Women, with offices in New Bedford and Mattapoisett.
"We got the woman onto a gurney and cut away the fabric and there was a healthy baby, crying vigorously," the obstetrician/gynecologist says with a laugh.
That, he says, was the epitome of an "uncontrolled delivery." And, as rumored, those kind of deliveries tend to occur in the wee hours of the morning. It probably happens that way, Pope says, because the mother goes into labor and, reluctant to leave her home, tries to hold out until morning. But her baby has less convenient plans.
In general, though, statistics show that the commonly held belief that more babies are born between midnight and 6 a.m. is not true. In fact, once you take into account all the planned cesarean sections and induced labors, most babies are born during the waking hours of a normal day.
Every woman who has given birth has a story to tell — and has probably shared it with a mom-to-be. Childbirth is, after all, a dramatic event. It's also a highly individual event and one that continues to evolve medically. Having a baby today is vastly different from the way our mothers brought us into the world.
So it's not surprising that a lot of mythology about childbirth has developed over the years, experts say.
One machinery of that mythology is the entertainment business, Pope says.
Don't believe the television version of childbirth: screaming women, cowering men, abandoned coaching plans, blinding lights, sterile stainless-steel delivery rooms filled with white-coated staff barking "you can't push yet" while the hours pile up. Peeking between the mother's tented legs, the physician announces, "You're only 6 centimeters dilated."
The real-life scenario, Pope says, is much kinder. Mothers-to-be today establish birthing plans with their doctors or midwives — mood lighting, music, whirlpool tubs, hypnobirthing, body positioning, epidural or drug-free — which usually work out just fine without any curveballs from Murphy.
In obstetrics lingo, the deliveries that go well are called "controlled births." They make everybody happy.
Though not all wish-list requests are always fulfilled, Pope says as long as the mother and baby's safety are not at risk, even some oddball plans might be considered. One couple actually asked that the father be allowed to put the placenta on his head for a family photo. Though Pope said he could see no reason to deny the request, the couple ended up ditching the plan.
Pope busted another myth — that first-time labors are necessarily difficult — with his story of the most idyllic "controlled" birth he'd ever experienced. "The lights were dim. There was soft music. There was no IV, no epidural. People spoke very few words, hardly any above a whisper. I've never seen a more peaceful delivery room. The mother (who'd taken hypnobirthing classes) was in a different place mentally. She only had about 15 to 20 minutes of pushing."
According to hypnobirthing expert Annette Amaral of Acushnet, the precept that labor must be painful is also untrue. Training the mind to relax "helps moms cope. We teach them that pain comes from fear which leads to tension which leads to pain," she says.
In the course of five classes, the expectant mothers and their partners in Amaral's classes learn about how the mind and body work together, and how they can be a team during the birthing process.
"For some reason, women love to tell horror stories about giving birth, and what we see on TV are always horror stories. We're led to believe things are going to go wrong," Amaral says. "Hypnosis works on the subconscious, the imagination. The power that the brain has is pretty awesome. When the body is in a relaxed state, it produces endorphins (natural painkillers). When the body is uptight, it releases catecholamines, which prepare you for fight or flight."
Midwife Kris Ann Jardin of Healthcare for Women believes there is at least some validity to certain childbirth patterns. For instance, Jardin has seen more women give birth in the middle of the night. She also says more women give birth in the days around a full moon, and that extreme changes in weather such as rising storms seem to bring on labor.
Her job as a midwife, as she sees it, is to go with the flow of whatever a mom-to-be needs, with as few medical interventions as necessary. She thinks midwives are less quick to call for c-sections or inductions, and are more creative with helping women find birthing positions that relieve pain and help the baby along.
"I always think, too, that when you have the same body parts and can relate to what the mother is going through, it makes a difference," she says.
Two of Marion mom Mary Kate McCain's four children were delivered by doctors and two by midwives. She says she was fortunate that all four pregnancies were healthy, uneventful and unmedicated.
She was encouraged by both her doctor and her midwife to "allow my body to do what it was going to do naturally. The sense is that if your body can go into labor on its own, it can be a more effective labor."
For McCain, however, the labors were fairly short and she admits that she may have opted for painkillers if she'd had to live through one of those TV drama deliveries. "There is a certain level at which the pain is terrible. It could have been a very different story if I was in labor for 24 hours," she says.
McCain's first child, Gwen, was born at 4:20 a.m. after five hours of labor. Her second child, Jack, was born at 5:15 p.m. after just a couple hours of active labor. With her third child, Finn, McCain started having labor pains at 3 a.m., went to Wareham's Tobey Hospital (where she had all her children) at 6:15 a.m., and delivered an hour later. Fourth child Teag was born uneventfully at 7 p.m.
Her babies did tend to arrive several days late and be big, she says.
The Marion mom says her doctor was unusually willing to be flexible and attentive — even to the point of lying on his back to catch her baby when she wanted to use a birthing stool for her son Jack. His dedication and personal attention meant a lot to her.
"He wasn't like, 'Now my shift is over. Gotta go,' " she says.
Her experience with the midwife who delivered her two younger children was especially rewarding, she says.
"At the time, I knew nobody else who'd had children with a midwife," McCain says. "A midwife is with you all throughout labor and delivery. They're more willing to let it go the way it has to go. I think most doctors need more control than a midwife does."
Whether a woman chooses to deliver with an obstetrician or a midwife, Nurse Manager Mary Ellen Boisvert, who oversees birthing services at both St. Luke's and Tobey, encourages expectant parents to ignore the horror stories they hear about labor and delivery. Consult the hospitals to find out what options are available for making birth plans and expect the best.
"Most women are not screaming through labor or holding their breath in silent agony," she says.
