So mad I'm shaking, need to vent

[luckiest]

This really has nothing to do with me personally, I just stumbled upon this article today and it (and the comments below it) have me wanting to alternatively sob and rage. I'm actually sort of surprised it's having this big of an emotional effect on me, but after reading it I just need some words of support and know that not everyone in the world thinks like this author or her readers.

Here is the link to the article.

I think we've all heard it before, it's the "healthy baby is all that matters" line, but goes further into not just suggesting, but outright stating that mothers who desire more than that, who think that her feelings about birth should matter for a single instant, are indulgent, head-in-the-clouds bat shit crazy.

That's the point of the article, it seems: you don't matter.

Fortunately, I also found this FANTASTIC rebuttle to the NYT article that helped me to regain some of my sanity.

I'm truly not trying to start a riot or create some sort of awful mommy war, and there may have been a more appropriate place to post this, I just thought I might find some like-minded folks here who could validate my feelings.

[WifeofAnt]

Wow. Its not that mothers who want a certain kind of birth don't want a healthy baby, we just don't want to be emotionless vessels!! I have a birth plan, I have a way I'd like things to go, but I'm not going to put my baby ahead of myself.

I think having a good birth is more of how you are treated, the respect you get. I could get my birth plan to a 't' but if everyone treats me like s*** I'm going to hate it. On the other hand I could have complications and end up needing a c-section but if there's respect I could have a good 'experience' even if it was originally the last thing I wanted.

Plus there are different ideas of 'ideal'. For someone else their ideal could be having an epidural or a voluntary c-section. My birth plan for them could be torture or even dangerous. I can't tell them they're wrong because I can't tell them what they want. That's why my ideal is mine and their ideal is theirs.

[WifeofAnt]

Sorry to double post but I just remembered another point that someone else made a while ago somewhere else.

Mother wants natural birth, gets treated like s***, gets forced to c-section, and then gets ignored. People tell her to be happy she has a healthy baby but her feelings don't matter.

Engaged woman plans dream outdoor wedding (doves, horses, the works) but a hurricane comes through and she ends up getting married in a cold courthouse by a rude judge who thinks she's taking up too much of his valueable time. No one is able to show up, months of preparation go out the window, she doesn't get her 'experience'. No one besides a heartless fool would tell her "at least you're married".