HIGHLAND PARK, OH – Janet Freech, a 38-year-old parturient, wrote in her birth plan that her goal was to deliver “completely natural.” In the plan she specifically refused all available modern medical interventions in order to balance nature’s natural energy.
After a successful round of in-vitro fertilization, Janet was able to naturally labor in her sophisticated individual birthing suite illuminated by adjustable ambient lighting. Outside it was a scorching 98 degrees and 85% humidity, but luckily for Janet she was inside experiencing a cool, natural 72-degree environment with a natural fan blowing to cool her off.
During the labor process she laced up her all-natural Nike cross trainers and walked the naturally occurring carpet in the hall, trying to progress labor. Later, when the midwife checked her with the natural non-latex sterile glove, Janet was 4 centimeters and in active labor. Sweating in pain.
Excited, she quickly tweeted, “In active labor! #allnaturalbirth.” The natural social media site was updated after her message was transmitted from her iPhone 5s. She then took a “selfie” for her Facebook wall, which at press time already had over 275 natural likes.
Before her labor became too intense she pulled out her Macbook Pro and updated her blog on the internet titled, “Natural Child Birth, Giving Birth the Most Natural Way,” taking a 30-second break every 3 minutes to breathe then scream through the contraction.
To assist her cervical dilatation, she then rotated and bounced on an all-natural birthing ball listening to natural music on her iPhone. Unfortunately this didn’t help and Pitocin was started to help advance labor. Her next tweet read, “Labor augmented, still no epidural #allnaturalbirth.”
When her pain was getting to the point of being unbearable, Janet almost faltered from her 9 months of promising to her readers and friends that she was going all-natural. She started to entertain the idea of an epidural for 90-second windows between contractions.
Thankfully her doula swooped in – who earlier unsuccessfully tried to get her to labor without an IV – and convinced her to press on. “Come on Janet, stick with it. You don’t need any medicine to help this natural labor!” as the Pitocin continuously dripped to help Janet have a baby.
“We need you to focus. How about you FaceTime this labor with your parents?”
Janet thought this was a great idea. She powered up her laptop and started to stream every part of her natural labor to her family with her ultra-HD camera.
Her family tried to get words of encouragement in between the screams of pain that could be heard from outside the room. “Good job, honey, you can do this!” and “Keep going the natural way!”
Janet’s husband continued to give words of unhelpful encouragement like “Just breathe honey” and “It’s easy, you got this” followed by “Way to go! I did this to you.” Saying this over and over and over again.
Janet’s cervix stretched from 2 cm to 10 cm over a 5-hour period that was naturally experienced. Then her beautiful baby, while being pushed out of her vagina, ripped the tissue on its way out (not an uncommon occurrence) was also experienced naturally.
Finally, when the episiotomy was repaired and Janet was holding her newborn she then fell asleep trying to breastfeed her baby, too tired from the natural delivery to stay awake. Later when she awoke she said, “I have a raging headache, is there any way I could get some ibuprofen?”
