Yet another working during childbirth story
Yes, I’m a SanctiMommy. I just think that sometimes you have to draw the line on work blurring into personal. This story is yet another in a line of stories where women are bragging about their commitment to work by detailing the way they were working right through labor and back on their Blackberries or laptops the minute delivery was over. If you choose to work during labor and delivery, that’s your choice. But do you have to brag about it so that even more women are held to that standard? What about those who have high-powered jobs with coworkers who start to expect that level of commitment? What if they actually want to be present in and remember every detail of their child’s birthing process? I just think choice is important and the people who brag about working during labor are just as bad as those women who make you feel like a jerk if you choose an epidural over water birth and deep breathing or breastfeed for less than a year because work doesn’t provide a comfortable and clean place to pump. 
May 31st, 2007 at 10:26 am
Not to mention the fact that work you do while in extreme pain and/or anesthetized, to put it mildly, isn’t going to be your best. This is a dangerous step backward for working women in general. Women who work during childbirth are embracing the fallacy that women are somehow not good employees unless they can be exactly like men. The fact is, women who aren’t afraid to be women bring some unique and desirable qualities to the table — qualities men don’t have.
August 4th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Hi! New to your blog and looking through your old archives. I’m a SAHM Mommy of three who hopes eventually to get to law school. Got pregnant my senior year of undergrad…surprise! And then, our latest was a surprise after vasectomy. Just call us rabbits.
Anyway, I was just trying to gain perspective of how doable law school would be with kids and a husband with a demanding job.
Speaking of which, my husband was the one who took conference calls in the labor room. What an ass-hat. I love him, but he’ll never live that one down. He had to go out on the patio while I was dilated to six to get better cell reception. Big mistake! I banned the cell phone from the recovery room–even though one of his bosses wanted another conference call in the recovery room in the first hours of my son’s life. You can never get those precious first moments back. I can’t even imagine a mother doing that. Wow! That’s hard-core in a very bad way.