OK, so it has been 3 years, 5 months, 13 days , 3 hours and 21 minutes since I last committed adultery.....not that I've been counting, but the time weighs heavily, the penance is severe and I still desire the predator/pervert who convinced me after chasing me three years that getting naked before him was a good idea. @@ With my body, the only benefit to getting naked is the taking of a "before" photo for a plastic surgeon.

Here I was this middle-aged, chubby mother to 7, innocently posting on a Birth Board with a group of like-minded women who espouse "pure" birth; that is birth without interventions, pain relief or all the technocratic crap that today's hospitals, doctors and malpractice attorneys feel are necessary. The cascade of interventions which lead down the road to an unnecessary cesareans. Seriously, there are many hospitals whose section rates are topping 50% and more. Ridiculous. So the women on this board had run off any hapless physicians who rarely made an appearance on this board trying to convince us that these interventions were benign, necessary and frequently threw out the "dead baby card". After all, our true goal is a healthy baby, right ? (The true goal for them is dodging a malpractice suit, getting to the golf course on time and covering their asses) Now I firmly believe that there are too damn many attorneys. I believe our courts are clogged with thousands of frivilous lawsuits and I believe sympathetic juries award millions of needless dollars. No one can guarantee a perfect baby, period.

So, anyway, this anesthesiologist pops in on our board and starts proclaiming the efficacy and safety of epidurals. I mean, this guy produces study after study touting the benefits (after all, why be a hero ??)of pain relief in labor. Ok, so the women on this board are comprised of some very intelligent and professional women. We have L&D nurses, midwives, doulas, childbirth educators and let's face it, you could train a monkey to Google. Which means we have access to the very studies HE produces and the ones which point out the risks of epidurals. Think Pub-Med, Medline, etc. We also have the latest access to ACOG diatribes and pronouncements. So this doc is very erudite, intelligent and possessed of a rapier wit. He will identify himself only to the point of saying he is in a large hospital in the NE. He maintains that he is not there to diagnose or advise, but to explain procedures, etc.

So, we play around with him for a while, adversaries at heart. He takes it all pretty goodnaturedly. He invites the women to privately email him with questions. Now I go head to head with this guy, practically to the point of name-calling. His basic flaw is that he is ignorant of the emotional make-up, the hormonal ebbs and tides and the roller coaster ride that pregnancy and labor involve. Oh, yeah, he knows the scientific explanations/terminolgy, but he's very cut and dry as to the medical aspect. He's been well trained and is, what Dr. Robert Mendelssohn termed the "hamburger that typical medical schools churn out". He asserts that ALL HIS patients are THRILLED with THEIR epidurals and write him adoring and fawning notes of thanks. (Please pass the emesis basin)

Now I need to explain that soon into "Dr. Bob's" initiation to the boards, my husband gazes over my shoulder, reads a snippet of his post and mumbles, "He's trolling for women" and wanders off. WHAT ???? Are you kidding ??? While I am skeptical to his real reason for joining the board other that to display his arrogance, I shrug off dh's comment.

To be continued......................