One tough mother

I've complained before about the way the conversation of any gathering of women always seems to turn to childbirth, with the ladies comparing their bad-labor and bad-delivery stories like men comparing war wounds. I usually seethe silently through those discussions, since as an adoptive mom I can't possibly contribute -- but I read a news story last night that makes me wish I could bring this gal to one of those discussions, and listen as she put those whining mommies in their place: "You had a surgeon do your Caesarean? In a hospital? With anesthesia? Ha! I did my own with tequila and a kitchen knife!" According to the news report, a 40-year-old Mexican woman who lived too far from a hospital to get there in an emergency figured out that she wasn't going to be able to deliver her latest child normally and instead performed the ultimate in do-it-yourself medicine:

"'She took three small glasses of hard liquor and, using a kitchen knife, sliced her abdomen in three attempts...and delivered a male infant that breathed immediately and cried,' said Dr R.F. Valle, of the Dr Manuel Velasco Suarez Hospital in San Pablo, Mexico."

Let's all just take a moment of silence to think about that, shall we? And think about the potential repercussions of this amazing act of female strength if a) trendy women who are into home birth decide they want to do home Caesareans too; b) insurance companies get the idea that pricey surgical services are plainly uneccessary for this sort of delivery; or c) the people at "Fear Factor" get wind of this.