bass-ack-words

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As little as a month ago, I hadn’t considered the possibility that we’d deliver our baby by cesarean section. Our baby-in-waiting had long been sitting head down inside Momma, nosing towards the exit, as it were. Everything was on track, everyone was happy until, without warning, a visit to the obstetrics lab revealed that our Baby Bean had flipped into a complete breech position, at which point things got a little uncomfortable for all concerned.

The sono-doc immediately, if subtly, started counseling us as though something were wrong. A c-section would be needed, and soon (foregoing the clichéd “stat,” thankfully). He would call our regular OB, who would certainly get back to us that day to move things forward. At 38 weeks, every all-star check-up and test suddenly got flushed by a late-term sonogram.

Apparently we are not alone in getting pushed down a surgical path. Almost a third of all births in the United States occurred through cesarean delivery in 2005, up 46 percent over the last decade. Clearly, breeched babies and birth complications are not skyrocketing in our advanced society, and yet American women are getting cut open faster than Whitechapel courtesans rather than squeeze a kid through the old-fashioned potato shoot.

When it comes to birthing babies, cesarean sections are the quintessential American procedure. From La-Z-Boys to Escalades, nobody expends more effort making things effortless. So it’s no surprise that our default approach to birth is usually, “why feel it if you don’t have to?” Pain avoidance is not the worst mantra in the world, but it’s disturbing to me how quickly it seems to shut out all other options.

The perversity is that, once pain is removed from the equation, invasive surgery becomes inherently preferred to a natural birth. C-sections are the Tivo of childbirth, allowing everyone to skip the boring parts and deliver the baby on our schedule rather than the baby’s. What on-the-go Mom wouldn’t love typing “11:30. Have baby” into her Treo? And what doctor wouldn’t prefer to avoid a late-night delivery? Fewer and fewer, apparently.

We absolutely adore our OB and count our blessings to have such a proficient and emotionally-connected doctor guiding us through pregnancy. Yet even he is subject to the demands of the Medical Industrial Complex. Our doctor isn’t pushing a c-section so that he can ensure a Saturday tee time or an uninterrupted dinner, but he is regulated by an insurance industry that prefers a complex, controlled birth to a natural and unregulated one. He conducts his services within a hospital industry that prefers short and expensive procedures and penalizes doctors who don’t do enough of them. And he is informed by an obstetrics industry that is largely ignorant of breech birthing techniques. All this, despite substantial health and financial concerns about elective c-sections.

So, the fact that our OB allowed us time to get Bean flipped came as something of a surprise. The fact that he told us we had a 1% chance of success was not. That may well be the rate among people who do not try, or the rate reported to obstetricians who warn parents against it. The medical industry is continuously poking and prodding its way to identifying every flaw and problem in our bodies, but is strangely ignorant of how bodies actually work.

In the 70’s, that meant a mother might just get knocked out and deliver while unconscious. Today’s epidural applications mean that moms can get slit open with the same detached numbness as a regular birth. Invasive surgery isn’t a cozy cuddle by the fire, but removing pain without losing consciousness makes it a pretty compelling option.

And doctors don’t just want to regulate their schedule, they’d prefer to avoid lawsuits too. For a country that pokes and prods its way to identify every flaw and problem, there aren’t a lot of doctors that know what to do about them. The human genome, we’ve got that mapped, but don’t even try to find a practitioner who can deliver a baby ass-first. The few who’ve attempted such barbarity have had a chunk of their gray matter removed by the insurance companies (solely for liability reasons, of course).

There are always other options. If we’d really wanted to push Bean out of the airlock, plenty of doulas could assist a natural childbirth regardless of which appendage made the first appearance. On the downside, that would mean birthing at home, being away from our trusted OB, and incurring a lot more risk (or “uncertainty,” in less loaded terms).

But would it have created more risk, or just different risks? As it was, we opted for the c-section. The birth, while glorious and miraculous in its own right, also yanked our baby from her mother’s gaping stomach well in arrears of her anticipated development. Medical science, which had made her delivery painless and possible, had also missed the boat on her prenatal advancement by about a pound and two weeks. Had we allowed nature to run its course, would our baby have struggled to breath at birth, or sleep through her first two weeks of development? Or could the complications from breech have created a more damaging environment for our daughter? Only Dr. Spock knows for sure, although it seems reasonable to say that the cesarean jump-started a process that the child was as yet unwilling to commit to.

Since we tallied another birth for the cesarean crowd, this also means that our next child will likely contribute towards this trend (Doctors are loathe to deliver a “v-back” once their procedures have weakened the uterus). One day, vaginal births may fall into the same atavistic category as ass-slapped newborns and cigar-chomping dads, and that’s not a wholly terrible thing if it means striking the word “episiotomy” from the Big Book of Post-Partum Recovery Fun. But there’s much to be said for the wisdom of the womb, and I would hope that it always takes precedence over the presumptuous convenience of the knife.

I begrudgingly bought my first mobile phone in 2000 after my boss dictated that I be accessible while traveling. Despite my resistance, I’ve generally come to accept and mostly enjoy having a cell phone. But for a ubiquitous communication tool, it amazes just how bad the mobile telephone experience still is.

Why is it that, in 2006, cell phone reception from my close-in urban house still sucks? How can it be that I can still have voice mails disappear into limbo for days? Why do calls still drop along Mo-Pac, the second busiest stretch of highway in Austin? And, most importantly, how is it not possible to block specific numbers from calling my mobile number?

On Tuesday, I fell victim to SMS spam for the first time. It started in the afternoon, when my phone starting buzzing every few minutes. A 347 area code number kept popping up, each time sending a text message. There was a pause after the first dozen, but then the floodgates opened and I was deluged with 46 repetitions.

I called Cingular, who’s only answer to the problem was to completely shut off my SMS service. I guess they never heard the old Henny Youngman bit …

Patient: Doc, it hurts when I do this (lifts arm).
Doctor: So don’t do that!
Audience: Hilarity.

… because they weren’t laughing when they said it. All of a sudden, all the IT flunkies who ever told you to reboot looked like diagnostic geniuses compared to Cingular.

Now I’m stuck in no-text hell, partly to avoid further irritation, but mostly because I’m too lazy to have Cingular turn the damn service back on.

Did I mention, I hate my mobile.

It’s election day, so I’ve had one eye on the election coverage to see if W. gets the mid-term smackdown he has coming. Somewhat belatedly, I just finished Richard Clarke’s 9/11 tell-all “Against All Enemies,” sufficiently frothing my ire to vote against those who would sell a failed personal vendetta as successful counter-terrorism policy.

For better or worse, Lloyd Doggett has been un-re-gerrymandered back into my district (or is that vice versa?). Upside: I get to vote for a solid Dem that I like. Downside: No real Congressional protest vote for me. The best I could do was pee in Kay Bailey’s breezy sashay back to another Senate term.

Perhaps I’ll take some solace in the fact that my Governor will be elected with over half of the votes going against him. But it’s no real comfort to know that those anti-Perry votes either went to a bland sacrificial Democrat, a tactless and content-free independent, or a woman who changes her name and party affiliation more often than her hairstyle.

Months ago, I thought it would be good to have a big crowd rocking the political boat, maybe take Perry down a notch or two with a shrewdly-timed broadside. Instead we get Strayhorn spinning cycles trying to get herself listed as “Grandma” on the ballot while Kinky treats the campaign trail like an audition for the Redneck Racist Comedy Tour. (truthfully, I think Kinky’s more of a candidate for the Politically-Unfit Jackass Comedy Tour, but that doesn’t rhyme)

Otherwise, voting was little more than an excuse to spin the “hi-tech” dial across a slate of unchallenged judges and dubious bond propositions. A reminder, if ever one was needed, what a fragile sham construct our hyper-segmented form of democracy truly is. I hardly think that a litany of unopposed races and ballot initiatives shielded behind trite marketing slogans matches the Founders’ vision of representative democracy.

If my vote is my voice, today’s response to six years of deception and mediocrity should have been a scream of outrage blasted in the face of the crooked and complacent. But all they got was a hushed “you suck,” mumbled under my breath.

Update: At least some other parts of the country had the option to voice their dissent. Democracy does indeed require a perspective beyond your own ballot.

We’re sitting around the dinner table, eating lemon pepper chicken that’s perfectly cooked right off the grill. You know the kind, with the fat slightly crispified around the edges, but the middle is perfectly white and juicy.

The Cardinals are playing on TV. Unbelievably, the Cards are leading the heavily-favored Tigers one game to nil, and Game Two is currently scoreless. After the post-season letdown from some high-powered Redbird teams of recent years, there’s a refreshing underdog spirit emanating from this squad. And it somehow makes the chicken taste that much better.

Instead of listening to the usual Tim McCarver droning commentary, we have the Rolling Stones playing in the background. Not a CD. The actual Rolling Stones are playing in Zilker Park tonight, and strains from The Glimmer Twins are intermingling with the chicken aroma and Cardinals spirit in quite a sensory smorgasborg.

Later in the evening, the Cardinals may have fallen behind by three, but Keith unleashes the buzzsaw riff leading into Jumpin’ Jack Flash. It is a sublime evening in Austin, TX.