This one's personal for me.
Birth plans and birth stories are personal for EVERYONE, to be fair. But this crime agaist mommies is one that can have lasting effects, for years even.
When I was younger (read: thinner), I was shaped like Kim Kardashian. Unfortunately, I didn't have the sense to appreciate it while it was there. Hips in high school are hard to pull off. So I comforted myself with the thought that they were child-bearing hips. Hips that my perfect, healthy, 8-pound babies would practically crawl through with nary a whimper from me. Hips with a mind of their own, that could absorb contractions. Hips that would make up for years of gaping waistbands that showed off my undergarments when I bent over. If you knew me in high school, you remember that part. So when I found out that I was expecting our first child (surprise!), I had the utmost confidence in my body to deliver a giant baby, completely naturally, with absolutely no medical intervention. Drug-free. I was THRILLED with my choice. My mom did it with me. Countless women had done it for centuries. Heck, dogs did it under the stairs. If I'm being completely honest, I even felt a little smug about it, a bit superior. Especially when people told me I was crazy or expressed doubt in my ability. And then it happened.
My first pregnancy started going terribly, horribly wrong. Bed rest, fetal monitoring, and biophysical profiles, oh my! My son was delivered prematurely by emergency c-section, weighing a mere 3 pounds, 8 ounces. Definitely not the birth plan I'd had in mind. I was devastated. The measures were medically necessary and absolutely saved his life, but I couldn't help feeling like I'd failed. And it didn't help that no one warns you about how much c-sections HURT. I've spoken with dozens of other c-section mommies who felt the same way, as though we'd been robbed of an experience. So while walking around with this weighing on my shoulders, this happened:
Celine Dion plays loudly.
Me: "Oh, this is the song that was playing when I had A."
Ignorant Woman Who Wears a Size 0: "What?"
Me: "Well, it was playing in the OR when they delivered him."
Ignorant Woman Who Wears a Size 0: "Oh, I was about to say. Since you didn't actually have him."
Insert imaginary punch here.
Jerks. People are jerks. The main thread through most of these posts is that it's PEOPLE and the things they do or say that anger us pregnant gals. I eventually got over my feelings of loss about a c-section (although not the size-0 gal). And then I got pregnant with my second son, and the date of the repeat c-section was announced, and I was flooded with "advice" and opinions against c-sections. I'm not going to turn this into a forum where we can discuss the pluses and minuses of c-sections or any other kind of births. The fact is, it's MY delivery, MY baby, and the choices were made by MY doctor when looking at MY medical history. Do I envy women who were able to attempt or complete a VBAC? Yes. Do I think less of women who are able to deliver vaginally and opt for pain relief? No. Should you? Heck no. If you give birth in a bathtub, hospital bed, rice paddy, or operating room, you gave birth. You are a Mommy. No one has any right to cloud that joy with their own opinions. The fact is, your uterus is doing an amazing thing no matter what. You brought a child into the world, and no one should ever be allowed to open their mouths about HOW they entered it. Same goes for adoption. Mommies are mommies, whether the baby grew in their bellies or their hearts.
So the next time you want to think your friend who amazingly delivered drug-free is a hippie, or your friend with the planned c-section is taking the easy way out, or your friend who begged for an epidural while at 2 centimeters is a weakling, stop. There's no easy way to bring a baby into the world. Good luck with your birth plan, whatever it may be, and don't let any little changes in it steal your joy at the overall experience. I may not have gotten to hold my son the second he was born, but I have the rest of his life to do that.
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