Anyone else receiving & tired of hearing negative comments?!

[veganchica]

I don't know if this is happening to anyone else but it seems that lately everyone wants to share their negative pregnancy and birth horror stories.
This is my first pregnancy and I feel great and am looking forward to the birth. I'm positive and know that I am doing my best to take of myself and the baby.
I have only come in contact with one other person besides my mom and husband who are positive and supportive of me and my decisions.
All I hear is... I'm naive because I'm planning a natural birth and I won't be able to handle the pain, I'm being selfish and going to hurt the baby by having a waterbirth in a birthing center instead of a hospital, I'm endangering my baby by not having an ultrasound, I'm going to kill the baby because I sit down too hard, I sleep too much, I eat too much, I don't eat enough, etc.....
Or they decide to tell me about so-and-so's baby who just died or some other traumative birth story.
It comes from people I know as well as people I just meet.
I am so tired of it and just want to isolate myself from everyone because they bring me down. Sometimes they even make me cry.
Is this normal behavior from people to a pregnant woman? How do you guys handle it?

[SamuraiEarthMama]

oh, steph! i'm so sorry!

you learn to filter out the negative comments as you go along, and to welcome the positive stories with relish... have you visited the birth stories thread in the "birth and beyond" forum yet? also, reading ina may gaskin's books are great for filling your head with good notions about birthing.

oddly, i'm getting the most negativity from my own mom. you'd think, this being my fourth baby at home, and not a single minute of complications on any of 'em, she'd know i'm in good shape! but here i am, 33 weeks along, and she's still full of gloom and doom whenever i talk with her on the phone... "go get tested for GD! it runs in the family, you know!" um, no it doesn't. we have had two cases of geriatric onset diabetes, but nobody has had blood sugar problems or macrosomic babies or anything.

gaah. i just have learned to say, "thank you for your concern. i'll keep it in mind," just to end the subject (sometimes i have to say it two or three times before the subject really ends, but she eventually gets the idea).

a lot of people have had pretty horrible birth experiences just because of their willingness to hand over their decisionmaking to the medical establishment. they somehow gain some sort of confessional release by trying to pass their horror stories on to you. for them, i try to let them have their say (i think it's healing for them, in some way, to get it out of their systems), but i always try to get them to focus on their favorite part of the birth, or to retell some particularly joyful part.

if you're not feeling up to it, though, you are certainly within your rights to say "i'm trying to stay positive about this pregnancy and birth, and would appreciate your support. i do want to hear about your birth experience, but could we talk about it after my baby is born?" or "what was the best part of your birth? i'm trying to collect positive images and ideas about birth."

good luck!

katje

[SamuraiEarthMama]

whoa! i just noticed your sig line... you're breastfeeding a toddler step-son? wow! how does that work, if you feel like talking about it?

k

[veganchica]

LOL! Oh no, I am not breastfeeding my stepson. That would be very wierd especially since he is almost 5 yrs old.
When I was making my signature I got knocked offline (still using dial-up) and never went back to fix it.

Thanks for the advice.