Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Book #44: The Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie

Another quick Agatha Christie read from the library. This one featured Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, a detective couple I hadn't heard of in any of the other A.C. books I'd read before. I wish I had now, because they seem pretty hilarious: an awesome old couple doing detective work. This is apparently the last book Agatha Christie ever wrote, and it's pretty different in style even from Roger Ackroyd that I read yesterday. She seems very focused on the characters and the conversations that they have instead of the mystery itself; usually the only conversations or incidents that are written into a story are ones that later prove useful or significant towards the plot, but that doesn't exactly seem to be the case here. Tommy and Tuppence (a nickname for Prudence) talk a lot, to each other and to other people, and it seems like 90% of their conversations don't really have much to do with anything.

Like John Grisham or the Nancy Drew books, you can't read too many Agatha Christie novels in a row. (Not that I think two in a row is too many, but many more and you'd start to figure things out too easily, I think.)

Book #43: On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam

I've had plenty of people tell me, "You HAVE to read Babywise!" So I found it at the library and read/skimmed through it. (I'll be honest, I have a hard time reading these baby books all the way through, because they don't REALLY apply to me yet and I'm not really all that interested in parenting techniques--yet.) The basic premise of the book is that parents can and should set sleeping schedules for their babies, even from when they're just a few weeks old, and that makes things much, much easier for both the parents and the babies. It all seems very logical and I do think I want to do SOMETHING like this once baby boy is born. I'll probably check it out from the library again once I'm in Durham and read it more carefully once we're close to the due date.

The tone of this book was super obnoxious, though. The authors took that all-too-familiar-and-tempting road for parenting books to be overly condemning of any other parenting techniques and overly confident in the benefits of their own. The end of every section seems to go back to something like, "Remember, it's your responsibility to make sure your baby gets enough sleep. You can do it! Blah blah blah blah." Really not that appealing to me. But I do think the information is good.

Book #42: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

I just can't help loving Agatha Christie. Her mysteries are so 100% absorbing and usually very surprising at the end. The only complaint I've had with several of her books (and very slightly with this one) is that the detective (or whoever solves the mystery) sometimes makes these giant assumptions that help him solve the case--but there isn't enough evidence to explain WHY he made that giant assumption. Usually this happens with Hercule Poirot; Miss Marple does the same thing but usually explains it somewhat satisfactorily with how she was reminded of something that happened in the past. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a Hercule Poirot mystery (that is, he's the detective who solves the crime) and I loved the ending. I won't spoil it for anyone, but let's just say that of course you're always looking for it to be the least likely person,  and in this case, it definitely was. I kept thinking throughout that it had to be a number of different people, but I was totally wrong. And you don't find out who it was until the last five pages or so! This was definitely a very satisfying mystery, and a quick read--I finished it in about three hours or so.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Book #41: Easy Labor: Every Woman's Guide to Choosing Less Pain and More Joy During Childbirth by William Camann and Kathryn J. Alexander

Last baby book post for the day. This one was my favorite of the books I've read so far, because it actually DID seem unbiased (instead of the last one, which just masqueraded as unbiased). It was one I just saw at the library and grabbed (because OF COURSE I want an easy labor, like the title) and I'm really glad I did. The book's tone was also pretty reassuring and generally more professional (not quite as personal or first-person as the other baby books I've read), which just made it FEEL more unbiased as well. But anyway, the main point of this book is  to explain what options there are for dealing with the pain of childbirth and to give clear explanations of what the pros and cons there are of each one. There's a chapter about epidurals alongside a chapter on the Lamaze and Bradley techniques and even hypnosis, and they have birth stories from women who are anesthesiologists and midwives. So it really felt very even-sided on the whole natural-birth vs. not issue.

This book also felt very supportive of any choices that you might make in deciding how you want to give birth. It says several times in different places that whatever you decide is totally fine--your choices depend on your philosophy about birth and it doesn't say that you're more or less courageous or that you love your baby more or less than the next woman. That's exactly what I think, and that's exactly why I hate the preachy natural birth books that make it sound so evil for people who don't follow their personal ideas. My philosophy on birth is that it's just something I have to go through to get this baby at the end of it, and I want it to be as smooth and not painful as possible. So I'm planning to get whatever pain medication I want when I'm actually giving birth. I know lots of people feel differently, and that's awesome--more power to you! Maybe I'll feel differently after I have this baby, who knows.

Book #40: The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer

In the introduction to this book, the author says this:

"I also hope to give you the knowledge to make informed choices for yourself and your unborn baby. Unless you have medical background and a lot of free time, this knowledge is hard to come by. As we have just seen, what your caregivers tell you may be biased. And it is only human for caregivers to tell you only as much as will get you to do what they think best. . . . Like Consumer Reports, I will present the data you need to choose wisely and to practice 'informed refusal' as well as 'informed consent.'"

This paragraph pretty much summed up the whole tone of this book for me. It really irritated me how Goer claims that she's so objective and impartial and she's presenting us with "data" that will help us to overcome the evil obstetricians trying to stand in the way of me and my baby! (To be fair: she does later acknowledge that "obviously" she has her own biases and explains what they are--like it wasn't already obvious.) I hate when people pretend to hide behind a veil of objectivity when they're really and very clearly being influenced by their own opinions and ideas. Goer is 100% all-natural, no-intervention, and kind of portrays doctors as being evil and lazy. And yes, I do understand and appreciate that there definitely are doctors that must do all the things she talks about, and that there are women who have had serious problems and difficulties with giving birth and feeling good about their child's birth because of their doctor's care. This is all definitely true. But I really think that there must be a logical fallacy in there for her to make such universal statements. As usual, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle between her views and the medical world's views.

I did get some good information out of the book, though. I already knew that I don't want a C-section (does anyone?) but I also learned a lot about what other types of inventions are normal or common at hospitals. I do think that I want to avoid a lot of interventions if possible, but I'm still planning on getting whatever pain medication (epidural) that I want at the time (just wait for the next post). I need to learn more about what is "normal" at Duke Hospital before I make any big decisions about anything yet.

Book #39: Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

Okay, after I wrote the last blog post about the pregnancy book I read, I realized that I did want to count some more of these baby books I'm reading, if for no other reason that I can write down my thoughts about them so that I can remember which ones I found helpful and useful in a little while when I get back to Durham. Since these are just library copies, I might want to get them again--but I need to remember which ones they are first. So here we go--these will probably not be interesting to anyone else, but I haven't spent much time reading for pleasure the last week or so because I've been doing all this reading for BUSINESS (haha).

This book was written by Ina May Gaskin, a well-known midwife from Tennessee. The first half of the book is simply birth stories by women who gave birth at The Farm (their childbirth center) or at home with the midwives from The Farm, and all of them seem pretty positive. The second half is chapters on different aspects of childbirth from Ina May's experience and perspective. The main things that I liked about this book were how positive the birth stories were--even though I'm not sold on natural birth (not intending to do it), it's great to hear that birth doesn't have to be terrifying like reality TV makes it look. I also think that Ina May's ideas about the mind-body connection in giving birth really make sense: if you're scared or tense while trying to have a baby, it's not going to work as well as if you're in a warm environment where you're supported and able. I've noticed that my mind really does control a lot of what my body is able to do--when I'm nervous or not looking forward to something, it definitely affects how well I can do it--so I think that should still apply when having a baby too.

One funny thing: I'd never heard of The Farm, really, before reading this book, and I googled it after reading out of curiosity. It's actually a hippie commune they set up in the 70s, where there was a lot of sex and drug experimentation for decades, according to Wikipedia. Pretty hilarious that they never explain that in the book--all the birth stories make it sound like it's just a birthing center and don't mention anything else around there--and pretty much enough to convince me that I don't want to go give birth there (although I already knew that).

Bottom line: I'm not going to give birth on a hippie commune, but this was a good read and gave me some good things to think about to get ready for this baby coming out.