LOL, sushee on my first readin i thought you said your dinner was ON FIRE! LOL. Yummo, charcoal, my fave

I'd be interested to see if the trend is stronger in those women who had to endure more treatment. Like the choices of women who fell PG on first cycle of AC as opposed to those who have had 3+ Stims and 5+ Fresh/frozen ET's?

The reason i wonder that is because it's SO SO clear to me how our own personal experience colours our views of what we can do and what is possible. I will hold up my hands, i concieved accidentally, i had a perfect nearly-natural Homebirth without trouble or complication. I didn't need stitches. I pushed only once and DD shot out. It is SO FAR from the "average" experience, yet my opinions are OF COURSE coloured by that view. Reading what Hollybolly went through i can see that if i'd had her experience i would not have my views. And i DO know people who tried for a homebirth and ended up with sections. I even know a couple who lost their baby during their homebirth. Would it put me off? No. But i'll tell you what, before that baby died i was really geared up for wanting a completely natural birth. With DD i used gas and air for an hour and i had the synto injection for the 3rd stage because about 10mins after birth the midwives were getting a bit twitchy, DD had been a bit blue, and i wanted everyone to feel happy and chilled like i did (DD had recovered by then!). But i was really keen to have a fully natural birth. I knew not only the couple, but the midwife at the birth where the baby died. It was a surprise breech, she got stuck, he head was completely unflexed and it took them 20minutes from the birth of the arms to get the head out. She was resussitated but died 5 weeks later from severe brain damage caused by the oxygen deprivation. I would still have a homebirth, because the fact that her head was unflexed, the cord was already white when her belly was born (though she was still moving at that point, so perhaps whatever went wrong had *just* gone wrong at that point) and the placenta came down fully detatched with the head indicated there was something wrong before birth. SHe turned breech during labour. It's incredibly rare. THat doesn't put me off homebirth at all (though it did for a time). BUT that midwife still isn't back to work. SHe was DEVASTATED by the experience. And now i feel that if my midwife is scared and wants to give me synto i will take it. Not because i think i'll need it, but because the cost to me of taking it, while relieving the fear my midwife might have that i will bleed out and die on her, when she is responsible for my life and that of my newborn, is nothing. So clearly that (long-winded, sorry) is an example of how my belief has been altered by experience.

So we look at the LTTTC woman who has been through many attempts with AC, IUI, IVF, maybe even ICSI to try for better quality embies, who has endured treatment after treatment, loss after loss. For such a woman it's not a case of her body needing a little extra push, or even a BIG extra push. For a couple who have their reproductive cells removed, mechanically united (as with ICSI) and then put back and perhaps had to take drugs in early pregnancy to maintain the pregnancy, their exprience of theor body and it's capabilities in the direction of reproduction is already going to be SO altered by all that. I do know that Ina May (i know i bang on about her, but she's the world expert in normal birth and the authority in figuring out who is high-risk before labour begins!) says that the more horrendous births a woman has had the more cautious she is about recommending birth-centre/home birthing, because it is in our NATURE to learn from our experiences and however chilled a woman can seem in pregnancy, the first contractions can often bring on paralysing fear at the memories of last time. She recommends therapy from midwife-counsellors who can talk to the mother about her previous experiences and fears so everyone can get a feel for how ready she is to try for a natural experience. We don't all react the same way. I saw a horrendous (to me, pretty standard to the midwives apparently) induction, and it made me want to avoid hospital at ALL COSTS. But i know a doctor who has seen horrible births in hospital and she is going to have a section at 38 weeks to avoid it all. She thinks birthing is so hard and said to me "Even with all the interventions we can offer it can go so wrong" - i think the intervention MAKES it go wrong! Similar experiences, totally different reaction.

Perhaps that's at the crux of it Sush? Perhaps when it comes to birthing LTTTC women are more likely to opt for cs because their own experience has shown them repeatedly and over a long period of time that their body will NOT do what it should? That's not really an intellectual exercise, and it's something that's difficult to override. If we as a species could override our poor experiences we'd have died out.

Happymel i had to smile when reading your post and seeing the ticker Twins are common in my family and DP's and i'm TERRIFIED of getting them because of the risk of cs birth. I have already exhausted myself with research and worked out my plan! LOL. If both twins are head down i'll hire a private midwife and have a homebirth. If twin 2 is breech/transverse i will go into hospital and allow them to site and test (but not put drugs into) the spinal/epidural so that i can be taken for a section immediately if need be. If both twins are breech/transverse i will show up for a cs in labour.

Bx