i took the remark regarding exaggerating rather personally. i had two terrrible pregnancies and one terrible birth... for someone to say that i was exaggerating (i realise she might not be talking about me personally) i find offensive. it diminishes what i went through, the pain i felt, and the emotions that i had to deal with.
women should stand up for each other, not tear each other down.
some women have uneventful pregnancies and deliveries. i think they are extremely lucky and i would NEVER imply that they are exaggerating how "good" their experiences were. but not everyone is so lucky.
again, the intention of my post was NOT to tell a war story, it was merely to point out that c-sections are MAJOR surgery and the decision to have one should not be taken lightly.
Hey carang,
I didn't read the above posts so I'm not sure about what exactly was mentioned. But, when I read the comment about how women exaggerate, I tend to think that in general, birth is made out to be this catastrophic event in and of itself. We see it in the movies. We watch it on TV. The Womens Magazines focus on it. It's everywhere. The message is: The Act of Childbirth is Gonna Getcha'!
Now, you know me and I know you and we both had our share of hell to go through in childbirth (I tend to think you went through more than I did but again, I'm not comparing scorecards here). But, the truth is, that doesn't mean birth in itself is a messed-up biological function. Sure, both of us had messed-up experiences in some way--our bodies had weaknesses and difficulties that were particular to our situations and our health backgrounds. I mean, I was predisposed to bleed too much--it runs in my family--it's a health condition. There are ways that our bodies kind of pooped out on us and we did our best to deal with those situations and well, we must have done okay because we're both here right now.
But, the truth--the actual truth is that most pregnancies and births are normal. Less than 10% of all pregnancies in the developed world are actually high-risk cases. So, most women can look forward to a healthy birth. That doesn't mean that all women on this forum are going to be able to have one but the majority will. And the majority of the women here do not medically need interventions to go through labor--I'm talking about medically indicated interventions--not elective interventions. Our bodies are fabulous and they are designed to work but many doctors will try to convince you otherwise--that your body is faulty and is going to fail you--how depressing is that? And the stress of it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I was just thinking about this this afternoon. I haven't actually had a chance to ask my own doctor these two questions but I will pose them to him next week when I see him.
1. Have you ever personally attended a unmedicated, natural childbirth?
2. What is your personal intervention rate? If you are the attending doctor at 10 womens' births, how many of those do you suppose will end up having interventions? How many of those are mother-directed interventions and how many are interventions you directly chose? (forceps, vaccuum, induction, augmentation, epidurals and c-sections)?
I am very curious to find out.
Anyway, I think it is important for us all to tell our birth stories even if they happen to not be the most pleasant experiences--they all matter.
I just try to be careful to not do what a woman at my mother's church in the States did when I was about 30-some weeks pregnant. She walked up to me and out of the blue said, "Not to scare you, but so-and-so went into labor and gave birth to a stillborn and she was at the same point in pregnancy as you are now." I just looked at her and said, "I'm sorry, but I just don't accept those words you just spoke to me" and I made it a point to avoid her from then on. What was the point of her telling me that horrible story? Nothing. It's totally different when you tell your story to inform others.
