June 2008 Weddings
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: C-Sections
Can someone explain to me whats so "bad" about them? I read the love letter post that Jennrs posted below. Its very nice, but I'm failing to see why anyone should be bothered by having a C-section. Sometimes, it just needs to happen, right? Through no fault of anyone involved?
I've read blogs of mothers who have been sad that they have had a C-section. Is this some mommy-club thing that I'm not aware of? That a C-section is cause for shame?
"And on the keyboard, the Big D himself, Rusty Shackleford!"
Re: Re: C-Sections
m/c 7/17/10
Dx: MFI- 3% morph
IUIs: Gonal-F + Ovidrel + b2b IUI= BFNs
IVF with ICSI= BFP! EDD 11/25/11
3/18- Beta #1 452! 3/20- Beta #2 1,026!! 3/27- First u/s- TWINS!
Our twin boys arrived at 36w5d due to IUGR and a growth discordance
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
I think for many women, they feel robbed (for lack of a better word) of their ideal birth experience if they had to have a c/s. They feel like it wasn't the natural way for things to proceed and in some cases have severe depression over it.
My co-worker had a baby a few months before I did. She wanted a natural delivery. She had her heart set on it. She ended up having to have an emergency c/s and was knocked out for it because they had to act so fast to save her son from the distress he was in. She woke up several hours later, having missed his first cry, being weighed, etc. She's ok with it now but after it happened she had depression over missing the experience she'd planned out in her head.
For some women (not all) they feel as though they lost their birth experience. Especially if all along they had planned on a vaginal birth and really envisoned it turning out that way. I could elaborate more, but I know there are some ladies on the board who can speak more clearly on it since they went through it.
Also, the recovery can be really tough on some women.
Neena Mae. 1/7/10
"A baby nursing at a mother's breast is an undeniable affirmation of our rootedness in nature." - David Suzuki
Speaking just for myself - it just wasn't how I had envisioned everything going. All pregnancy, I had planned for a med-free natural birth. I had pictured it as an empowering moment knowing where all of those months of weight, night sweats, and then the hours of contractions culminated in the experience of actually birthing my child and bringing him into the world. Think of all of those movies with the sweaty woman bearing down and laboring through and then everyone is so happy when the baby screams.
Instead, I was laid out on a table Jesus-style (arms spread and strapped down) with a partition in between me and my belly. I didn't get to see his first breath. I didn't get that moment of empowerment. I was useless - unable to move, unable to even hold my baby. My first glimpse of LO was from across the room as they held him up for a quick glance before weighing, etc. Plus add all of the hormones.
At the end of the day, I have the same result - a beautiful little boy. But I still do feel like I missed out on some quintessential woman/mother experience and hope to be able to VBAC with baby number 2 when the time comes. i'm not ashamed in anyway, just let down a little. And mine was non-emergent, just post date so there are so many what if's...
Okay, between what you and Colleen said I can see where this would be very upsetting. I didn't think of it that way.
Beyond that, there is absolutely an emotional aspect that comes along with a c-section. For me, I can't help but feel disappointment, still, that I will likely never experience what it's like to actually "have" a baby. I live in a rural area, and the only hospital that is local does not allow VBACs. Unless I go into labor early in subsequent pregnancies, I will never know what a contraction feels like, or experience the feeling (as described by friends) of how your body takes over. I will never have the anticipation or excitement of not knowing when my baby's birth date will be until it's happening. Of course, these are all insignificant when compared to the ultimate goal of having a healthy baby, but they still play a part in mine (and so many others') feelings about their birth experience.
That being said, my c-section was planned due to Sawyer being frank breech. I had a full week and a half from the time we knew I would have to have a c-section to the time it actually happened. I can't even begin to imagine the added feelings from a failed vaginal delivery attempt piled on top of the ones I already have.
BFP 11/25/2009 ~ Blighted Ovum Discovered 12/10/2009 ~ Natural M/C 12/24/2009
BFP 3/29/2010 ~ EDD 11/25/2010
Sawyer Marshall ~ November 16, 2010
THIS!!!
I don't feel like my c/s was a bad experience either. I trusted my doctors and nurse staff completely, when they said c/s I accepted it right then and there, I feel like they included me throughout the actual surgery, they gave Zac to DH and he was inches away from my face the entire time they closed me back up, and my recovery was realatively easy.
What does bother me is the same thing that Emma said. Suddenly I was labeled, "the one who had to have a c/s" and the funny thing is people weren't like, "OMG! You HAD to have a c/s?!?!?" instead they were, "Ohhhhh, YOU had a c/s" as if it was a cop out to a vaginal delivery. Most people think you skipped the anxiety and fear, and labor part of birth, because they're ignorant - no body wanted to hear that I actually was in a hospital bed having contractions for 19 hours, all they hear is I went into the OR and 15 minutes later my baby was born.
I guess c/s momma's just want some credit. We may not have pushed, but it was just as dramatic as any other birth.
Aspen Marley ~ 12.22.11
My Blog of Randomness - Pocketful of Roses
I would have to agree.
I just wanted to say that although I knew about the struggle of disappointment and acceptance some women go through after their c/s, I had no idea that so many women had their feelings or experiences marginalized or treated as "the easy way out" afterwards. I have never considered a c/s the "easy" way, and I find it alarming that others do. I am so sorry to hear that many women and their experiences are judged or put into a little box like that.
However, rockymountain's post about the badges had me thinking because I have also seen the "c/s momma" and "give me the epi" badges. I have been called names IRL and on the bump regarding my natural birth. Names like crazy, stupid, unprepared, masochistic, and a personal favorite, "primitive." I have been asked things like, "if you would get drugs for a root canal, why wouldn't you get them for child birth?" Not looking for pity, just saying that I have also been asked to explain myself and my choices. I hardly felt respected a lot of the time, let alone admired.
Bottom line: It just seems to me, like with every polarizing issue of womanhood and motherhood, that there is venom spewed from every side at one another with the end goal of feeling that our own choices are superior to that of our fellow woman... and I just wish it would stop.
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16 read! my read shelf:
I don't have much to contribute, except to say that it's nothing new for some people with their heads up their rears to marginalize c-section mamas.
My mom told me once that when my sister was born in the 70s, she was delivered by c-sec. (She delivered twins by c-sec a few years before in an emergency-situation and both had passed away.)
One of my aunts made some comment about how it's not like she had "really" given birth before.
My mom's a pretty level-headed woman, but I would have loved to have seen her tear in after that remark.
And people need to mind their own damned business- my sister then passed away later in childhood and some a-hole stopped her in the mall when I was very young, asked if I had any siblings, and then berated her for being selfish because she had only one child.
As to your first paragraph, I just have to say, "Really?" I am sorry you went through that, I did not mean to start this thread to belittle any one way of giving birth.
And as to your second paragraph, I agree with both you and CNStarz - I just think all the criticism and polarization needs to stop. Aren't we all in it for the ultimate good of our children? Isn't that something we can all agree is a priority? And Starz - the idea that your mom was berated by a stranger about how many children she had, something he wasn't even correct about, just disgusts me.
I guess I just don't get why we're turning into a society of judgment and criticism. I don't understand why we can't just live and let live, and allow people to have their own choices and opinions, especially if other peoples' choices have no effect on us. But that is a whole different thread.
I think all of us moms would do anything to ensure the safely of our children when coming into this world and beyond. I think it's true for c-section mamas and natural birth mamas alike.
With that said, I would have been pretty upset had my birth ended up in c-section by some reason that I know I could have prevented. That is why my pre-birth preparations and birth plan represented actions that I knew I could take to decrease my chances of a c-section as much as possible. Had it ended up in a section anyways, I would have been so happy and thankful for the life-saving intervention.
My reasons for avoiding c-section have more to do with my own health, my baby's health, recovery and risks than any emotional issues, but I can definitely see how those could come into play as others have mentioned.
C-sections are a necessary and life-saving operation. I think those of us who are for natural-birth are not against them, just hoping for a decreased use of them for non-emergency situations to increase infant and mother survival rates. The US ranks 29th for infant mortality rates at birth, behind most of Europe, Canada and even Cuba.
I'll add my experience. I actually went through labor and pushing and all of it, until Molly's head got stuck and her heart rate started tanking. It was either forceps/vacuum which may or may not have worked or emergency c-section. My aunt lost her firstborn due to the vacuum so I went for the c-section. I've got a lot of "you took the easy way out" as a result or "that happened to me and I used the vacuum because I wanted a vaginal delivery." It stings because I wonder what if, but at the same time knowing what my aunt went through losing her daughter, I just couldn't take that risk. I did want a vaginal delivery, but I wanted a healthy baby more.
With that said, I don't feel bad about my c-section at all. I was happy to get Molly here safely. But I would like to punch some of those "superior" ladies in the crotch.
This really pisses me off for you. How incredibly pretentious and downright rude.
This really pisses me off for you. How incredibly pretentious and downright rude.
Oh no, I'm so sorry if that's what it sounded like. I know you didn't start this for that reason at all, and it's also not the reason I posted my side of things. In fact, it's exactly what I'm trying to avoid... that post was my attempt to illustrate that it seems like we are all questioned and shamed on some level. (And yes, I was also surprised that I received that kind of attitude about my preference... just to clarify, it was mostly IRL and some of it was on the bump, but never here on this board.) I have respect for anyone who has given birth, no matter how they did it, and I'm horrified that other women can't agree on that.
The people who say things like the examples given by cnstarz, coryswife, myself, etc. really should STFU. It's NOT appropriate to criticize someone's medical history, and that includes childbirth procedures. It's yet another example of how we as women lose ALL of our privacy and respect when we're pregnant... people can openly comment on our weight, touch our bodies where they normally wouldn't, ask insanely inappropriate questions, and then voice their opinions on what we should do with our breasts and vaginas. Enough already!
...Stepping off soapbox now to go make Ghirardelli brownies.
Oh I have so, so much to say. I would have responded last night, but didn't have time to get into it all.
There are so many things that contributed to the problems I had dealing with my c-section emotionally. Physically, my recovery was not bad at all. Emotionally, I wasn't so lucky. Like others, the actual experience of birth was terrible. I was tied down arms to my side. I got to see Collin from across the room as they weighed him. DH took video and brought it over to me and then he and Collin were taken to recovery while I stayed laying there, strapped down, vomiting, alone, scared and just wanting my baby. I hadn't even touched him yet. It was over an hour after birth before I could see him.
Once I was in our room, I was not allowed to be in the room with him by myself because I was helpless. DH had to go home to see SD because he had been gone for days. We didn't know the rule until he was leaving so there was no one there (they had all gone home to sleep). MIL came asap, but there were hours I just laid in bed, alone again, without my baby because of my c/s.
Then, again like others have said, there was disappointment of being "robbed". Feeling robbed of the things above that I missed and that empowering "I did it" feeling.
I also felt robbed of my "innocence" in a way. I am a blind truster. I don't need a reason to trust people. I trust them until I am given a reason not to. I trusted my doctors unconditionally. I assumed if they said it was needed it was. Well, my c-section was at 3:48 am. Wrapped up a little over an hour later and my dr was going off call at 6:00 am. I know from working in billing in an OB office, the dr who delivers is the dr who gets paid, often for the entire pregnancy. I may never know if my c/s was really necessary. Collin was sunny side up which they "discovered" during surgery. Somehow, in the 3 or 4 u/s I had in the 2 weeks prior to his birth no one noticed that. No one mentioned that the epi could stall labor either. Should I have known that? Of course, but I didn't and it wasn't mentioned. My progress stopped completely as soon as I got it. I don't trust much that doctors say anymore and I won't ever get that back.
There is also the regret. I was working 2 jobs during the majority of my pregnancy. Full time at the dr office plus serving/bartending 3-4 nights a week. It was a lot. I didn't have time to squeeze a lot more in so I chose the bfing class over childbirth. What if I had taken a childbirth class? Would my knowledge have helped me avoid the c/s? I changed drs at about 30 weeks. What if I had a picked a different dr or a midwife, would they have given me a better chance at a vaginal birth? When they did the u/s and it bumped up my EDD by over a week I was excited thinking it would be that much sooner that I would meet my baby sooner. I knew when I conceived and what my EDD should be but I didn't argue until I was at the end of my pregnancy and the EDD made me overdue that much sooner. I had to fight for every day past "40 weeks" and finally the drs let me go to 42 weeks exactly by their count. Could I have given my body an extra week if I had fought the EDD from the beginning?
The last part was something I heard a ton. You have a healthy baby and that's all that matters. I had no idea there were a lot of women who took c/s hard and I had all these people saying that to me trying to help. Aside from the fact that Collin then went into the NICU and I had to worry about whether or not I had a healthy baby, what that said to me was my feelings didn't matter. I shouldn't feel the disappointment and regret that I did because I had a healthy baby so nothing else should matter. I think feeling badly for feeling badly was the hardest on me. I walked around with the pain for almost a year before I found the VBAC board here and got to "know" other women who felt the same way I did. It was as if all the sudden the weight lifted. I wasn't selfish or wrong for the way I felt and more importantly, I wasn't alone.
I know this is really long, but if just one person can avoid my mistakes and avoid the pain I had based on something I say it is worth it. It is interesting all this came up yesterday because DH's cousin is facing a c/s because of baby's size and she came to me asking for advice because she knows I had one and wasn't happy about it. All of this is really fresh again because of our discussions and I suppose that's why this turned into a novel.