Soooooo how's that birthing going, Alex?

Well, I hope.
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir

Well my wife was severely disappointed about last birth. She felt it was too medical and too rushed and not emotionally fulfilling. So she's been reading all throughout the pregnancy about VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), to see if that's safe to try, and it turns out it's safe to try although it's not really mainstream.

So the news we got yesterday was that they'd like to us to have the baby by Friday (unless we go into labor spontaneously before then) because if a baby stays in too long, the amniotic fluid and the placenta can't keep supporting it. So they either want to do a C-section, or induce labor. If they do a CS, Jess's recovery is going to be really difficult esp. considering that she'll be taking care of a 17-month-old at a time when she's medically not supposed to be lifting anything as heavy as a 17-month-old. If there's no CS, we don't have that problem. However, if they induce labor, depending on how they do it there's about a 1% to 2% chance that the uterus ruptures, in which case the baby probably dies, the mother probably doesn't die, and the uterus probably needs to be removed.

We're having a hard time making this decision because that risk is God-awful but it's also so small and a vaginal birth would be just easier in every single other way. The best option obviously is that Jess just goes into labor spontaneously before Friday.

Jess has tried various non-medical (read: not intense; lower chance of harmful side effects) methods of inducing her body to go into labor, such as castor oil, taking walks, topical application of evening primrose oil to the cervix, having sex w/me, eating spicy food, acupuncture, and doing light-to-medium housework. It's kinda upsetting because we've seen success stories from all these methods, but not for us. Friday there were contractions all day (this was a castor oil day) but they never progressed to labor. We'd been so sure they would.

So that's how that's going. I appreciate you asking -- and I imagine you got allllll the information you were looking for. lol :)

It's kinda upsetting because we've seen success stories from all these methods, but not for us.

Well, yeah, anecdotal evidence is anecdotal:

Schaffir, J. (2002). Survey of folk beliefs about induction of labor. Birth, 29, 47–51. doi:10.1046/j.1523-536X.2002.00047.x (see the discussion section starting on page 49)

You know, if you postpone the birth till Saturday, your second child will share my birthday. I'm sure that such a good cause seems worth any amount of danger to the mother and fetus. Actually, the 24th is cool too, because then we'd have three birthdays in a row.

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"…the USA is like Microsoft—whatever they decide to use, no matter how brain-dead it is, everyone else copies it from them, willingly or otherwise."

Yeah, I mean, you just assume that when a midwife says it, she's got (at least in her head) a fairly good idea of how many anecdotes she's heard of it being successful vs. how many of it being unsuccessful and therefore can give you her opinion of its efficacy (where "it" is any given induction method).

But midwives are human and therefore are liable to confirmation bias, not to mention that their clients aren't going to systematically report these things, and the clients' selective reporting is mediated by the illusion of control.

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"…the USA is like Microsoft—whatever they decide to use, no matter how brain-dead it is, everyone else copies it from them, willingly or otherwise."

All true.

And yes, I have gotten increasingly cynical about medicine in general in the recent past. It seems that most health-care workers don't think like scientists. Although this problem exists throughout medicine, some fields have it worse than others, the worst offender probably being psychotherapy. This makes psychology look bad. And that makes me a sad panda.

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"…the USA is like Microsoft—whatever they decide to use, no matter how brain-dead it is, everyone else copies it from them, willingly or otherwise."

Oh. See, I assumed from the facebook status there were kids being born imminently. Otherwise I would not have asked such a bizarre and probing question.

But good luck, guys!

Also, Kodi, I recommend this blog, if you are not familiar with it: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir

Holy moly that is a scary blog. NCCAM makes me want to evade taxes.

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"…the USA is like Microsoft—whatever they decide to use, no matter how brain-dead it is, everyone else copies it from them, willingly or otherwise."

Well we scheduled an induced labor for Thursday afternoon, so I'd say that's pretty imminent.

Oh dear. Well I hope everything turns out alright! Medical science is pretty baller these days.
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir

Had the baby! See your local Facebook for details.