health in HK part...i don't even know anymore!

Last night I was in the hospital for six hours while four doctors deliberated over whether or not they should slice me open right then and there or if they could wait a week before slicing me open.  meanwhile, i was asking if there was any way I could avoid being sliced open at all. 

You see, I have always sincerely believed women are made to safely carry, birth, and feed human babies, whereas they are NOT made to safely be sliced open, ever.  the more i learn about cesareans, the more I realize how dangerous a surgery it is, and how grave a decision to have one is. 

The thing is, people think about it as being more like rhinoplasty.  Rhinoplasty is a fantastic reconstructive tool when you get into an accident or something goes horribly wrong in fetal development, but most often it is completely medically unnecessary, brings with a host of potential complications, and the person who gets it is often worse off for having had it done.  Who things Michael Jackson's nose jobs did him any favors? 

But the majority of people don't consider these complications and side effects and go into these surgeries as if they were about to get a tooth pulled.  "Hmm....Tuesday sounds nice, I'll get it done before the in-laws come to town and then we'll all have a party!" 

Doctors, too, are far too complacent about cesareans.  basically i think nurses and doctors are knife-happy cowboys who believe cutting people open is the answer to most problems, but somehow they are far more blase (I wish i could make French accents) about C-sections than other operations.  And yet, the 6-8 week recovery period, and the variety of potential complications that are more common than in a regular birth, are certainly nothing to sneeze at.

And yet, when truly medically necessary, operations are life savers.  So i was trying to determine if my baby's irregular heartbeat, which had been regular and strong and perfect for the past 37 weeks, was truly a medical emergency or if it was a temporary glitch in the heart-brain communications department and would sort itself out on it's own.   We listened for hours, and watched on the ultrasound, and switched machines several times to make sure it wasn't a glitch in the machinery, but truly, the heart, so perfect until now, just couldn't get it's act together. 

of course, i wanted to know why a perfect heart would suddenly be a problematic one, and they didn't know.  I asked if it could self correct, and they said it's possible, but they didn't know.  I asked how many babies with irregular heartbeats survive normal deliveries and they didn't know.  What they DID know is that sometimes babies with irregular heartbeats DIDN'T survive normal deliveries.  Why is it doctors never know when you ask them how normal something is, but always know when you ask them how abnormal something is?  Why all this bias for the abnormal? 

Google wasn't any more helpful.  i found lots of literature about how babies with irregular heartbeats are delivered by cesarean, but i couldn't find a thing about whether this was necessary, how often it self-corrected and made c-sections unnecessary, or how many women delivered happy healthy babies naturally anyway.  I want to do what's best, but it's hard to know what's best when you are only given one side  of the argument. 

the other issue is that there is almost no amniotic fluid in the sac, just like with Kai.  i was disappointed to hear this, because my experience with Kai and his dehydration taught me to really go wild on the liquids, and I've been drinking crazy amounts of water/fluids  for all nine months,  and was told last night the amount of water I drank had no influence on the fluid levels of the amniotic sac; it all depended on the health and general condition of the baby.  it was the combination of the poor amniotic sac condition and the irregular heartbeat that concerned the doctors.

I do have to say, I feel better that four doctors and three nurses consulted together and watched me for hours before concluding a C would be best.  And they laid out the options: 
1.  have a c section/induction right there and now and let them have at the baby. 
2.  Wait a week and see if it self corrects, then have a C section, or an induction ( i also am opposed to inductions, because I had this done before and I know what utter crap that turns into)
3.  Wait two weeks, but if it does not self correct, i will not even have natural delivery as an option.
4. let the body progress naturally, natural onset and delivery in 2-4 weeks time, but if the heart has not self-corrected, the likelihood is high that the baby would not survive the stress. 

But even so, I would have liked at least one of the doctors to have been older than I.  Someone who had delivered 1,000 babies and had seen everything and knew what the real range of normal looked like.  Just because something isn't textbook perfect doesn't mean it's abnormal, or dangerously different.  I'm going to try between now and next week to find someone with a little more experience assess the situation and tell me honestly what is necessary and what is not.  And find my peace with whatever I need to do.