I was debating writing this blog or not. I know some people have a distaste for the show because of the actions based on one celebrity. I will stand that as I do not know exactly what happened and whatever happened that was wrong, I don’t condone that or support it. I am writing this because it’s a doula’s perspective of an episode from the year 1999. One year before I was born, making it twenty-one years old.
For a show from the ’90s, I was impressed. I decided I would watch it after needing a relaxing day to just meditate on my thoughts, and go back to my youth and what truly made me happy. (A show about family, and babies. Umm… I was always game, from the very beginning of my youth.) Then I got so excited about seeing it, I was called to write a blog about it. It has been a long time too.
Let us start with some backstory. For those who haven’t seen the show, this is a spoiler alert… but hey you had 20+ years to see it. I think you are bound to know some things by now. The aspect that their five other children were in the waiting room. Interestingly, most are older and know exactly how to behave and yet those other children get into a lot of trouble, still.
Simon the fourth child in the family line, is hoping that the twins are boys, you see him going to the hospital chapel and praying for that, and he even used the shoelace old tale that if it swung a certain way it was a boy or girl. So, this made me think that they did not do any ultrasounds to discover the gender of the babies.
Yet at the beginning of season three, she got an ultrasound that discovered they were having twins, eventful none the same. Then you have the common thing that she was scheduled for a c-section in the upcoming week, but labour started on its own and, well there she was.
Now, this is where it got interesting, and I paused having to tell my sister the interesting news. (since we have seen it maybe 2-3 times before but now being a doula… things popped out much differently.)
This doctor told her that she had to have a c-section. His only reasoning was that labour had been taking a while. Then Annie’s husband Eric began to ask my favourite questions, is everything alright with the children? When the doctor said yes and he had no reason except for it being that she had been in labour “a long time” she demanded that she would like another doctor, where he then tells her that most doctors would agree with him and want her to have a c-section. But she
stood her ground and said as long as she was in good health and so were her children, she was going to be getting another doctor to make sure she could give birth naturally.
So not only, did this scene show the use of the BRAIN acronym (Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Intuition and Nothing) but she was given the choice to consent, now it wasn’t informed the way we hope it to be but finally, she gets the doctor that she had a history with. (he almost killed her first son).
This doctor says he will help her but the minute there is trouble he will take those babies out via c-section. Later, we learn that one baby is now breech making this more difficult. (Now midwives have delivered breech babies before and I do believe some doctors have as well.) He tells her he will have to manually turn the baby. We hear her also voice her opinion about pain meds and later getting the epidural. Now before the epidural, my brain was like…
“Why aren’t you walking around? Why are you in your bed the entire time? Why just tell me you went up a few thousand times to use the washroom.”
Now, in my opinion, I know I am thinking of this decade and how we are getting more and more support out there for women, so they learn all the secrets of labour. (Are they secrets? Not really… they are just not talked about as much as they should be.)
So, then she gives birth to twin a, the twin b’s heart rate is going down, and this doctor turns the baby and after a few pushes, her twin boys have arrived.
Overall, the sweetness and dramatic factor on this show get an A+ I am biased though as I have seen it since my childhood and have a soft spot for it. But I was amazed at her desire for a natural birth and the use of their brain. It just made my day.
So, what other shows have birth scenes that need to be discussed?
(I hope to one day do “Doula Reacts” on YouTube but my project list is long.)
