Between a rock and a hard place?

A few weeks ago I went to an acquaintance's baby shower. She was due sometime in early March, but apparently was developing kidney problems as she got closer to the end of her pregnancy. She told me that doctors were concerned, and even though she had no swelling and no high blood pressure, protein was spilling into her urine and it had her doctors puzzled. Therefore they were considering inducing her two weeks before her due date.

I have to remember that often times my facial expressions are so easy to read, and I need to do a better job hiding my feelings. I probably looked annoyed? Concerned? Puzzled? Who knows. I try to remember, it's not my pregnancy, it's not my baby, it's not really my business. I asked if maybe she could go on bed rest and take a wait and see approach, but not really knowing the full scope of her problem, I wasn't about to offer too much advice. But in the back of my mind I thought, There is no way this is going to work. I felt so badly for her.

I asked her coworker about her yesterday, and he told me she'd had the baby. They tried to induce, it didn't work, and did the section around 4 a.m. He told me her mother had kidney complications, and I knew her mother had died a few years ago. I thought, What should she have done? She was put between such a rock and a hard place.

Ultimately, her baby was born healthy, and that's the best thing for everyone. I won't say "that's all that matters," because for many women the journey to having that healthy baby is very important, too. But I just wonder why they even bothered putting her body and her baby through all of that when they knew it wasn't going to work? Why kid her about entertaining the possibility of having a vaginal delivery?

That was her first lesson in the School of Childbirth, and I felt so badly for her, but even more so for not really being able to avoid it. I felt the same way with my last section. It's sometimes a daily struggle to not feel "ripped off" by the whole experience, and somehow come away from it positively and hope to help other women (without coming off as the "Pregnancy Police" or a "birth nazi" - I hate that term).

Maybe if she has another baby she'll have a chance for a "do over."