So why didn't you want the Pitocin?

This is a tough question to answer, because the truthful answer will sound superficially like we're super-crunchy hippies who hate modern medicine.  But the reality is that Ginger and I are both proponents of natural childbirth techniques.

We're not Luddites when it comes to other forms of medicine.  We have embraced and will continue to employ a number of medicines and procedures that were unknown to the ancients -- things like Tylenol, blood transfusions and vasectomies.  But we have become convinced that some of the things that are standard for the American Way of Birth tend to cause more complications and extend the recovery period.  For one thing, we're absolutely certain that the actual experience of pain during labor is a trigger for a number of postpartum responses, and is integral to the process of birth.  That's why we (and I use the term "we" very loosely here) used no drugs in our prior two births.

So why care about Pitocin, which is not an analgesic?  Pitocin is the trade name for a synthetic form of oxytocin, a hormone and neurotransmitter that triggers a cascade of organic changes relating to birth.  The key word here is "synthetic."  It substitutes for the oxytocin that your body produces naturally.  And it's administered in order to start a process that your body opposes.  I suppose all medicines ultimately do that at some level, but Pitocin is like a guy pushing your car to get it jump-started -- all well and good, if your body knows how to put the car into gear and let out the clutch, but useless if it doesn't, or won't.  Almost all of our stories of poor birth experiences involved Pitocin at some point in the process.

Ginger was close to devastated, but it was hard to argue -- we'd spent the last 24 hours trying to stop labor by administering medication, and now we were asking her body to do a complete 180 turn.  If any circumstances called for induced labor, it would be these, because if the perinatologist was serious about the need to deliver today, the alternative might be a C-section.

Our day shift nurse, Pat, assured us it would be okay.  And chances are, it would, but it wouldn't be the birth experience we'd had with Patrick and Charlie.  Then again, looking around, nothing about this was.  Nevertheless, Pitocin was something to grieve.  Pat left the room with a parting shot I won't soon forget:  "Pitocin gets blamed for everything, because it's always at the scene of the crime."  Yeah, but you know what else is always at the scene of the crime?  The guy who dunnit.