Hi. I'm a poet and I wrote this a while ago, put it on facebook. It got loads of shares and seemed to resonate with lots of women. I had my girls 24,22 and 12 years ago, all by caesarean section, two of them emergency. Thought it might go down well here.
Birth Plan
I want soft lights and music, perhaps a birthing pool.
I want massages and foot rubs, I want a fan to keep me cool.
I only want one midwife – no drugs just gas and air,
perhaps, if I think I need it, and I’d like my husband there.
I want active, to walk around, between early contractions,
I want a compilation C.D. and as little interaction
as possible. I want tea, toast, organic nuts, a doula and a mentor,
I want a T.E.N.S machine, a hypnotist, my own refrigerator.
I want the baby wrapped up in a blanket of angora,
I want a private room filled with flowers from Interflora.
I want, white noise,whale noise, recordedby Friends of the Earth.
What I really, really want, is a really natural birth …
I got florescence, 'trial of labour', I got an oxytocin drip,
I got, 'stay in bed' and 'nil by mouth', I got the bip, bip, bip, bip, bip,
of a monitor. I got sweaty hair, I got gas and air,
and mind-blowing drugs that made me swear,
I got pethidine, and morphine, I got my own anaesthetist,
I got panicky, hysterical,I got hot, felt cold, acted pissed.
I got teams of consultants, discussing each contraction,
I got nurses telling me that soon there’d be more action.
I got cannulas, speculums, a doctor with a torch
I got my legs raised, my brow mopped (yes, really, a torch.)
I got blood taken, meds given, data in plural
and when the pain got really bad, I got an epidural.
I got white lights, bright lights, I got a spinal block,
I got a junior doctor, nervously looking at the clock.
I got surgery and stiches, a scarred bikini line,
a really fit surgeon, who told me 'it’ll all be fine'.
And it was fine, it really was,
what they said was true,
I got what I wanted in the end,
what I got was you.