Realizations and Reinforcements

I'm doing my nursing school clinicals for OB/GYN right now. Yesterday was a very educational day for me. I was able to sit in on 2 C-sections and observe a circumcision.

I am really into natural childbirth. I feel that childbirth is a natural body process, not a medical emergency. I don't have selfish, aesthetic reasons such as not wanting a scar. I want to be a part of my child's birth. Seeing the C-sections reinforced my feelings toward them. The mother is not a part of the birth at all. She's just a vessel. The baby is taken away from her right away, she gets to see, not hold, it for a matter of seconds before it is taken to the nursery. I know there are some important medical indications for the procedure, but unless it is truly life threatening, I really can't understand it. Why aren't doctors trying to turn breech babies, it can be done.

The other thing I had reinforced yesterday was something my best friend's blog pointed out to me. Her blog helped me realize that I was making a fashionable aesthetic decision when it comes to circumcision. I have left my posts alone and not asked her to delete them, but I feel rather stupid and embarrassed now for posting them. They were very uneducated comments. Seeing that little boy's penis reduced to raw meat yesterday was depressing. And Dad's smug proud expression while it was being done made my classmate and I want to smack the shit out of him. People don't understand what they are doing to their sons. Luckily Arizona Medicaid no longer covers it, so the procedure has slowed down a lot.

I catch a lot of shit for feeling how I do about these subjects. I really don't care. People can say what they want, it's how I feel on something that is very personal and very important to me. I don't berate my democratic friends for voting for Obama. I don't insult people who's opinions differ from mine, but not everyone can be that big of a person, and I feel sorry for people who can't respect differences of opinion.