Top No-Good-Crummy Things People Say « Back to Group Discussions

[Partaria]

I'm having a DAY. One of those days when you just want to scream and shake everyone and say "Why don't you GET IT?!"

I thought it might help to vent and to write out some of my top things I wish people would just. quit. saying.

1. Glad I chose X, Y, or Z, then.

As in, glad I chose to birth with this midwife, or this doula, or to birth at the birth center. The implication being that making all the right choices/moves ensures you can avoid a cesarean. And mamas who've had one just didn't do their homework or make the right choices. Nothing like statements like these, with their incredible privilege and hubris.

2. The baby's healthy.

Yeah. I'm not. You want to see my scar? It still hurts 15 months later.

3. You can have a VBAC next time.

Who says I want a next time? And thanks for making any future births all about fixing the first one. No pressure or anything. Sheesh.

4. She believed she could, so she did.

I believed too, and then I didn't. Belief is powerful, but it does not trump physical reality. My son was good and stuck, and no amount of faith would *believe* him out of my vagina. Trust me.

[Lynann]

Hugs Mama

I've been so sensitive lately that I've had to stop looking at my Facebook.

I'm emotional about a lot of things at the moment including other people's attitude towards birth.

Also I've had the successful HBAC and it didn't change how I feel about my c/s. If anything it just makes me question it even more.

Hope your day gets better and you start to feel more at peace.

[julst632]

Lol oh so true! People are always so good at making you feel worse with what they say! I try to give people a chance but sometimes... My SIL and I were discussing labour and birth. She is due soon and when she realised I haven't had a vb but four cs instead she replied with something along the lines of "well that's lucky cos vb is not nice..." Really? Reeeeaaaallly? How can people imply that having a cs is lucky? I wanted more children but I have had to have a tubal ligation due to a thinning uterus, adhesions and scar tissue from the cs.. How is that lucky? I am lucky I am still alive and to have my four babies I know but I resent people implying I "chose" the soft option where having a baby is concerned...

[SweetSilver]

Welcome to MDC, julst632, glad you have found us!

[JamieMcC]

Good post!! I have heard some of those things...I always cringe when I get asked "So, how was your birth?" Baaaah!

[lillymonster]

Wow, I had some issues come to a point lately, I had read some emails on a message board I belonged to about someone who was looking for birth options. Everyone replied with responses like you mentioned. "I had a doula and that is why I had a great natural birth" Yeah I had a doula for my vbac, and I ended up with another c-section. 

The best was "because I was able to birth in a birth center, I was more relaxed. And since I went home after 4 hours, I had a great bond with my baby " So...because I was in the hospital for a week, I don't have a bond with my baby?

[CI Mama]

I'm glad you've joined us, Lillymonster!

[CI Mama]

This quote has popped up on my Facebook feed in an promo for our local birth center:

"Giving birth should be your greatest achievement not your greatest fear."

Setting aside any fundamental questions about what on earth they mean by "achievement"...(geez, what a loaded word)

Why the either/or thinking? Is something either an achievement or a cause for great fear? Can't an experience be both? In fact, isn't that one of the fundamental mysteries of birth, that it's a package of so many things together? Is a birth either "positive" or "traumatic"? Can't it be both? Is there any respect for the spiritual growth that comes with embracing a contradiction?

And the worst thing I've encountered is the idea that women who have difficult experiences shouldn't share them because they'll "scare" pregnant women. I just cannot see how silencing someone improves the world for anyone else. That's one of many reasons that this group is really important to me!

[Alenushka]

Congrats of surviving what is continuing to be, statically speaking, one of the most dangerous activities.

Congrats on becoming a mom.

Life is what life is. No one can experience what happened in the same way you did. You gave birth to a healthy child and you are alive.  C-section is not some sort of second rate birth. It is birth.

Future experience do not fix the past. All we have is present.

I am sorry your scar hurts. I hope the pain lessens with time .

As far as the believing thing, I just do not believe it anymore. The entire positive thinking thin is just mad.  

My name is Alenushka and body is lemon. I take my medications, I do my PT and I am glad I am still here.

[Partaria]

Here's my big issue with a lot of this. Birth isn't wine and roses for all of us. It's a bloody messy business. The fact of the matter is it is creation and a rite of passage so it's BIG. LIFE CHANGING. And not all changes and rites of passage are gentle, even if we plan them that way. Some of them are wild and scary and unpredictable and you feel like you barely made it out alive.

That does not mean it is any less meaningful, heroic, important, memorable, or worth sharing. It is simply the way your own story unfolded.

I so get what you mean about ppl thinking they had natural births just because they chose the right doula or midwife or whatever. I had our town's most admired midwife (who was awesome, no question), a doula who'd attended hundreds of births. I did everything. Chiropractor, yoga, all of it. And I had a cesarean because life happened. Life- unpredictable, laugh in the face of our plans, life. I planned for the best and got something else. Women who try for birth center or homebirths are doing just waht I did. Trying to set themselves up for what they believe is the best kind of birth, and then hoping that their births unfolds in that way. 

I hurt for women who say things like "I got a natural birth because of my doula." No doubt it helped. No doubt. But my pain in hearing that is invoked by the fact that these people think that good things happen when you plan properly. When "bad" things happen... it will be taken by them as their fault. IT doesn't leave a lot of room for compassion or gentleness.

As Pam England said "Can't we have enough compassion to consider all the outcomes- some maybe out of our control?" Indeed.

You are a goddamn hero for sacrificing your dreams and your dignity and your plans to get your baby here. Truth.

[Partaria]

Regarding our birth stories being scary. Here's my thoughts on this. Can you imagine if we applied that to other places? 

Oh, let's not teach airline pilots how to fly a plane with a damaged engine or wing. It might scare them!

See how nuts that is?

And I can say from experience that what IS scary is being wheeled into an OR with absolutely NO knowledge of what cesarean is or looks like or will entail. That's what's REALLY scary.