By Helen Klonaris

Dear Beloved Community

Imagine you are a woman, pregnant. Imagine you and your doctor have arranged that tomorrow you will be induced, because the baby is overdue. You pack an overnight bag with things you will need: a bath robe, a fresh nightgown, furry socks, a bible. You are excited and a little nervous. Your husband keeps coming into the bedroom to ask if you need him to do anything. "You're sweet," you say, "I'm okay." You can tell he's nervous too, because this is your first.

You wander into the baby's room. You run your hand over the wooden crib, twist the knob on the mobile so that pink and yellow butterflies begin to circle to the tune of "It's a Small World" and you smile. The next time you turn on the mobile your baby boy will be lying down under it, watching the butterflies dance.

Butterflies are dancing in your belly and it is hard to fall asleep. Even with the lights off, your eyes won't stay shut, you are seeing his face, imagining who he will look like, telling yourself, this is the last night he will be inside me. You whisper to him, "'Bye my baby boy, and see you soon and very soon."

The next morning your husband drops you off at the maternity ward, where you have a room to yourself, he says he will be back soon. To begin the labor process, a nurse inserts a piece of a white pill into your vagina. Friends and family show up and you are all excited. Six hours later, because you are not progressing fast enough, another piece of a white pill is placed inside you. Your water has been broken and soon you do begin to feel contractions. The nurse administers an epidural. The doctor is not there yet, but you are assured he will be there soon. You are now in the birthing room with your husband and your mother and your husband's sister. The contractions are coming faster than you expected, faster than you have been told to expect. Next, in spite of the epidural, you feel a searing pain on your right side and you scream and tell the nurse you feel a terrible pain. She says it's normal, and that you must push.

You are beginning to be afraid in a way that you never expected. You are cold and clammy from the fear because the pain on your right side does not feel normal. Again you tell this to the nurse, who again tells you the pain is normal, and to push. This is your first, and who are you to know what is normal, or not, you think. She is the nurse, she should know.

"Where is the doctor?" You scream. The doctor is not there yet. You are pushing but the baby won't come. You are pushing, but it feels like an elastic band has been cut and you have nothing to push with. The pain is like nothing you have felt before, knives or fire could not be worse. Something is telling you to ask for a cesarean, something is telling you things are not right.

Finally the doctor arrives, and starts barking orders. You scream that you have pain. He says pain is normal, push. You tell him you can't push, you yell, "Give me a cesarean!" They are looking for the baby's heartbeat. You are weeping and asking them, "Why can't I hear my baby's heartbeat?" You know something is not right, terribly wrong, but no one is listening to you. The eyes of your mother, your husband, his sister are all afraid.

More nurses come in and are rolling you to another room, the doctor and your nurse are whispering and you can't hear what they are saying. Next, the doctor is cutting you open, taking the baby out. You don't hear your baby cry, the way you expected to. The eyes of your mother, your husband, your husband's sister are wet, wet.

In this story, the baby does not survive. But the story I have shared with you is fiction. In other stories, true-true stories, sometimes, neither does the mother. In some of those true-true stories, the baby survives but is brain damaged, because the mother's uterus was torn and the baby was deprived of much needed oxygen. In the true-true stories, a drug called Cytotec was used to induce labor, a practice that has been ongoing in the US and other countries since the late 1980s.

Cytotec (also known as Misoprostol) was created to dissolve ulcers. And because of a FDA loophole, (once a drug is approved for one purpose, it can be administered by a physician for other purposes at his/her discretion) it is also legally used to induce abortions and labor in pregnant women. In spite of the warnings listed by the FDA, warnings that state the use of Cytotec to induce labor could result in hyperstimulation of the uterus, uterine rupture or amniotic fluid embolism, AND that severe genital bleeding, shock, fetal heart bradycardia, and fetal and maternal death have all been reported, in spite of these warnings, Cytotec has been embraced by the medical establishment as a "miracle" drug (David Goodman, Mother Jones, 2001).

It is a miracle drug because it enables women to give birth vaginally within a 24 hour period. It is a miracle drug because it costs less than 25 cents per dose instead of the hundreds of dollars other labor inducing agents cost (Goodman, 2001). It is a miracle drug because a woman can check into a hospital at 7am and leave 7pm with her baby in hand. Unless, of course there are complications. Unless, of course, she doesn't.

Meanwhile, pregnant women are being told that inducing is the way to go. The word Cytotec is rarely mentioned before hand. Women (and their partners) are not being told of the side effects or possible consequences of its use. They are not offered the kind of information which would allow them to make up their own minds concerning whether or not to induce, and what drugs they want to use, if any. They are cut off from the kind of information that would enable them to be the ones making important decisions about their own bodies, their wombs, and the lives they are carrying.

Meanwhile, hospitals are becoming more and more efficient. More like factories. The control of women's bodies more efficient too. The birthing process, regulated, like clockwork. And like all progress, what does it matter if a few don't survive?

Some argue that the use of Cytotec has little or nothing to do with empowering women in the birth process. Dr. Marsden Wagner, a neonatologist who served for 15 years as a director of women's and children's health in industrialized countries for the World Health Organization has said, "Cytotec enables doctors to practice daylight obstetrics. It means that as a doctor, I can come in at 9 a.m., give you the pill, and by 6 p.m. I've delivered a baby and am home having dinner. (Goodman, 2001)."

Join me next week for more on women and the medical establishment. Or write to helenklonaris@gmail.com