Ricki Lake
On her "good divorce" and very revealing home-birth documentary.
by Sara Cardace
May 2, 2007
How horrific was the pain? Be honest.
Ricki: Different women have different experiences. The worst for me
was going from seven to ten centimeters. That was the fastest, but also the
most intense. I absolutely reached a point where I thought I couldn't do it.
There's
a moment
that I talk about in the film where I heard an ambulance siren going past and
I absolutely said, "Get me out of here." But I tell people it was manageable
pain, because I was able to do other things that the hospital really doesn't
allow —
positioning any way possible, like on the birth ball, on the toilet, in the
shower, out of the shower. I had so many other ways to deal with managing the
pain.
And I also had a goal, not only to build my family and have more children,
but also to have this experience, to get through it, so it was really magical.
Abby: What we try to show in the film is that there's a whole aspect to
birth that people overlook, which is that it's incredibly emotional, psychological
and sexual. A lot of the experience depends on what your perception is going
in, and how much fear has been built up in you through watching too much on
TV and hearing too many bad stories.
A lot of people, once they see the film, walk away saying that it was the first
time they really felt okay about birth, especially people who haven't had children.
Ricki: When I got pregnant with my first child — I'm a Virgo, so I was planning everything to the day — a friend of a friend had had a midwifery experience, and she told me her birth story and I'd never thought of doing a natural birth with a midwife before. But then once I heard this positive story, there was no question for me when I got pregnant, I wanted to do it that way. But it's really the luck of the draw that I happened to hear that story . . .
Abby: I've noticed making this film that it really takes
Nurse midwife Cara Muhlhahn with couple Mayra and David Radzinski in a scene from the film. very little
to kind of crack open the door for somebody. You just give them a tiny bit
of information and suddenly they're like, "Oh, I didn't know that midwives
work in hospitals!" I didn't know anything going into this movie. If I hadn't
known Ricki and made this movie, I probably would have gotten pregnant, stayed
with my OB-GYN, gone to the hospital, gotten my epidural as soon as I could.
No question.
Abby, in the film, you try to give birth at home and you end up having to go to the hospital. Did you ever feel like you'd made the wrong decision?
Abby: No. I mean, it's hard to know how fast you're gonna go. Looking
back, I'd say if we had left for the hospital an hour earlier, that probably
would have made for a smoother transfer . . . [Laughs] But I didn't know.
It was my first baby, and I thought I'd be one of those ten-hour labors and
I would have all this time.
I have to admit that whenever you guys talked about the possibility of
just heading to the hospital when there are complications, all I could think
about was all the times I've been stuck in a New York cab for forty-five
minutes trying to go ten blocks.
Abby: I think that you have to realize that they're talking in a half-hour
safety time. They know where each hospital is, which
is the emergency one, which is the backup, and they're thinking a half-hour
into the future. One midwife, Cara, who's in the film, has been doing
this for thirteen years and I think she's had only one transfer that was actually
an emergency, and it had nothing to do with the baby. The woman had heavy bleeding
afterward. But they're never going to wait
until the last minute. Usually in a labor you know when there are complications
way ahead of time.
So, how old are your respective children now?
Ricki: My son Milo just turned ten, and my little guy's five and a
half.
Abby: Mattheo is ten months.
Ricki, you've been out of the spotlight for a bit. What's been taking up your time, aside from the period when you were going crazy with this documentary?
Ricki: Well, first I was going crazy with my divorce. That was my big focus for awhile. I did an independent movie last year with Cheri Oteri and Alec Baldwin called Park, and then I did a pilot for ABC that we'll find about in a week or two. Mostly I've just been pretty busy being a mom.
©2007 Sara Cardace and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Sara Cardace is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York Magazine, the Washington Post, and Interview. The baby pictured at left does not belong to her. |
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