is it delivery? ...or is it birth? - Page 3

[JanetF]

On a bad day I describe my caesarean as an amputation. That's what it was like.

[OnTheBrink]

Originally Posted by JanetF

On a bad day I describe my caesarean as an amputation. That's what it was like.

Oh gosh! I'm sorry you feel that way! I hope that you can find some peace about the birth.

Incidentally - I gave birth first by cesarean and then vaginally. I honestly didn't care for either method!

[orangefoot]

When I had ds1 in Mexico people asked when I was going to 'aliviar' which can mean among other things relieve, unburden or soothe. I'm not sure where that fits with the semantics of birth but it does feel like relief when the baby is in your arms.

I have a friend who is having a scheduled c section and she is talking about the day the baby is delivered or when she will be sectioned. She describes it that way because that is how she feels, but it does make me feel odd.

Here in the UK people generally think about delivering in hospital ar having a home birth. My dh always makes me laugh about delivery because he has a joke about it 'Do you deliver?' 'No, but we do do pork, chicken, fish.....'

[selazenby]

At my blessingway last week (wonderful experience!), my mother in law said to my midwife - "You delivered Jake, right?" (Jake is my son) My midwife's response: "No, Erin birthed Jake, but I was there." Loved that!

[sapphire_chan]

You need an "other" option. I mostly speak in terms of "birth". However, if the discussion on medical management refers to general practices, then I use "delivery" as the people doing the management are not "birthing". Not sure that makes sense. I voted for "birth".

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by applejuice

When I had my first baby, I was given a EDC, "expected day of confinement" - to a bed, I assume, but it still sounds like a prison.

Didn't it used to be an "estimated month"?

[applejuice]

Originally Posted by JanetF

On a bad day I describe my caesarean as an amputation. That's what it was like.

I hope you can find some peace with that.

Caesarean is a special birth. I like to say that grapefruit are sectioned, and women give birth.

[cottonwood]

I hadn't really thought about it before, but "giving birth" is a funny idiom too, because it assumes that the mother makes a conscious decision to get that baby out. In a spontaneous (physiologically normal) birth, my hormones and the baby's hormones work together to get the baby born; I have little to do with it other than to not interfere with what my body is doing. So technically speaking, I did not give my daughter her birth, it was simply a force of nature.

[applejuice]

Fourlittlebirds, you gave her "life", a very special gift!

Bringing life into this world is a very special act.

[Sailmom]

I find it interesting that the hospital where I work has a "labor and delivery" floor where women birth their babies. The freestanding building where a group of midwives assist women in birthing their babes is called a "birthing center". I much prefer birthing. There is something so sterile and distancing about delivering...

[eilonwy]

I've had a vaginal birth and a c-section, which just doesn't feel like a birth to me. I'd say that I was delivered in both cases, though I did feel like my son was born despite the fact that he needed help to get out; I don't feel like my daughter was born at all... I never had the transition. One minute I was pregnant, the next minute the baby was out. It took me weeks to get used to the idea that she was out at all, and I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that she was "born." I tend to say that she was delivered, even though we've celebrated her "birth"day.

It's not that I prefer one term to the other, I just think that there are some situations which merit one term rather than the other, so I didn't answer the poll.

[OnTheBrink]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

I've had a vaginal birth and a c-section, which just doesn't feel like a birth to me. I'd say that I was delivered in both cases, though I did feel like my son was born despite the fact that he needed help to get out; I don't feel like my daughter was born at all... I never had the transition. One minute I was pregnant, the next minute the baby was out.

That's really interesting. Is it because it was so fast? Some moms birth vaginally quicker than a birth by cesarean. I'm not debating your feelings at all. Just wondering...

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by OnTheBrink

That's really interesting. Is it because it was so fast? Some moms birth vaginally quicker than a birth by cesarean. I'm not debating your feelings at all. Just wondering...

I think that it has more to do with the fact that I didn't labor at all than anything else. My mind had a hard time making the transition, because there was absolutely nothing for me to wrap my head around which said that my daughter had been born, that I was no longer pregnant but mothering.

I know that women can birth vaginally more quickly than a c-section is generally performed, but either sort of birth/delivery can take a really long time or a really short time. A baby can be delivered by cesarean in as little as 35 seconds, and while I know that women can have very short labors (the women in my family being among them, myself excluded) I've never met one who labored less than a minute before their child was born. Even my mother's unassisted hospital delivery (yes, it can happen) was preceeded by 9 minutes of labor.

[nznats]

Its difficult to define with those two terms because it is really individual experiences and individual mums that define it. For me I call my daughters CS a birth but I know tons of mums who had there babies this way call it a delivery. I also think an unassisted birth is a birth, whereas someone actually assiting you etc could be defined as being delivered.

[JesseMomme]

Originally Posted by cathicog

Remember Pound Puppies? I think that was a brilliant marketing tool for surgeons....

I remember the Pound Puppies, but I cannot relate it to surgeons....help!

In thinking about how the word delivery comes from liberated, gives me the image of an attendant "liberating" a pregnant mom from the baby. Or, maybe liberating the baby from the mom <shudder> It's implying that someone(s) always are in need of being saved, "freed" from the unnatural state of pregnancy and the dangers of labor.

Of course it's so ingrained into our culture (the US at least) that I often put it to people that I delivered my last two babies - boy that throws e'm for a loop!

I do prefer birth of course.

[SKK]

Originally Posted by tinyshoes

oh yeah! Good point!

So what about "born by cesarian operation?" would that irk you, or be an accurate description for the enormity of abdominal surgery (I am pro-homebirth, not anti-c-sec....and I am definitly anti the prevailing attitude that a c-sec is "no big deal" because it's common nowadays. IT'S abdominal surgery!!! that's huge! owie!!!!!)

I agree that a c-section is a big deal, and it is major abdominal surgery, but I don't particularly like the way that this term was presented in the pp ... i.e., the semantics we use when discussing birth can mean the difference between a "fulfilling birth experience and major abdominal surgery", and that "cesaerean operations" should not be confused with "birth"...

I did not plan for two c-sections, I did not want them, I did everything humanly possible that I could to avoid them. But, as it turned out, I did have them. I prefer to think of them as "births" - as they were the means by which my children were born. I labored naturally for a longer period of time than most women who have vaginal births (60 hours the first time, and 50 hours on my vbac attempt), and I was an active participant in the labors and all of the decisions (in fact, the final say, of course) leading up to both c-sections. To try to use language in such a way as to make sure that no one confuses these important, life-altering experiences (the c-sections through which my children were born) with "real birth" is, to me, patently offensive.

To answer the OP - of course, I prefer the term 'birth', and prefer to apply it to all of the different ways that children come into the world.

ETA: Just using Tinyshoes' post as a jumping-off point - I don't think she was the one who characterized C-birth that way

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by SKK

I don't think she was the one who characterized C-birth that way

No - I haven't re-read the thread, but I think that was me.
As I say, I don't want to take that feeling away from anybody, but I guess it's just one of those problems that can't be resolved. Because, I'm offended by people's assertions that I what I went through was a birth of any kind. I have three children, and I've never given birth...and it's looking very doubtful that I ever will.

[boston]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

Because, I'm offended by people's assertions that I what I went through was a birth of any kind. I have three children, and I've never given birth...and it's looking very doubtful that I ever will.

Why are you offended?

[Storm Bride]

hmmm...not sure if offended is really the right word...hurt, maybe.

Because I didn't. I loved labour, was looking forward to meeting my baby and was more excited than I've ever been. Then, I was knocked out, cut open, and saw my baby for about 5 seconds an hour or so later, then was knocked out again (sleeping pill) until the next day. I had nothing to do with his delivery, except that he was pulled from my unconscious body. I lost out on an experience that I'd been looking forward to for years.

Then, not only did I spend the next several weeks in pain, get immediately placed into the "high risk" pregnancy category and go through weeks of depression...but doctors and magazines and even my friends tried to tell me that I got what I wanted. I'd "given birth" to a healthy baby. Having someone cut me open like a Thanksgiving turkey and removing my baby while I'm either unconscious or can't feel anything below my breasts isn't what I consider birth. I wouldn't agree if someone told me I'd given birth to a gallstone, either.

I've grown two wonderful little boys and one wonderful little girl, and I loved it. Being pregnant feels wonderful. I just wish I knew what giving birth feels like...

[Storm Bride]

I didn't really say what I'd wanted to. What I really mean, I think, is that calling my c-sections "giving birth" to me completely dismisses my loss of that experience. It's like everyone wants to tell me I had the experience when I didn't, so they can sweep my pain and anger under the carpet and pretend it's not there. "Oh, yeah - surgery sucks, but you still gave birth. So shut up, already."