Tips on being supportive of a "medicated" or csection birth:) - Page 2

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by prothyraia

There should NOT be an "Or" there. It's an AND. Having a healthy baby is important. Having a good birth is important. Both of them. Not one or the other. Why does saying you're not happy with your birth make people think you're ungrateful for your child, and why do people think the proper way to deal with that is to say Don't Be Sad, You Have a Baby, Your Feelings Are Silly and Meaningless, Your Priorities are Wrong. :

Thank you. After my initial few months of severe depression, I spent almost 10 years telling myself I was over-reacting, and at least ds1 was healthy. I told myself that over and over, because that's what the whole world around me was telling me. When I couldn't conceive, and wondered if the c-section had damaged me forever, I shut myself up, because my c-section wasn't that big a deal, right? When I finally did conceive and lost it...and my next...and my next, I was told that it wasn't because of my surgery (happens to be true, apparently), so I just shut myself up.

When dd finally came along 10 years later, and was another c-section, I didn't talk about how much it hurt, because after all, I finally had my baby, and that's all that counts, right??

It wasn't until I was told that ds2 would have to be another c-section, because I was so damned "high risk" now that I really, fully admitted to myself just how not okay this was with me. I'm not sure if my first clue was the nights I spent tossing and turning because I couldn't sleep, or the nights when I did fall asleep and woke up from nightmares of a blood-splashed OR and my own voice screaming (the first nightmares I'd ever had, I might add), or simply the fact that I didn't enjoy being pregnant at all...the whole pregnancy was just one long bout of tension and dread (to the extent that dh initially said "no more" because he couldn't handle that again). I fought for months and months to get out of that section, and ended up cut again.

For anyone to tell me that all that matters out of all that is that my children are healthy is offensive on a level I can't even describe. For one thing, it completely dismisses an absolute hell I went through (partly because our society refuses to admit that it is hellish for some women)...and partly because it implies that without the surgery, my children wouldn't have been healthy...that I really am broken, and needed the man with the scalpel to get my healthy baby out. If I didn't, then why are people giving me the healthy baby card? If I could have had a healthy baby and not been a convalescent, why is the healthy baby all that matters when I am recovering from surgery?

Okay - that was really long. I was just trying to make the point that this crap greatly interfered with my ability and freedom to process what happened to me in my own way and on my own time. It dismisses what I went through and makes it perfectly okay to force surgery on women...because the surgery doesn't matter, anyway.

Of course, I'm happy that my children are all healthy. But, I'm furious at the implication that it's only because they were cut and violently pushed from my anesthetized body that they are healthy.

[channelofpeace]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

I can honestly say that I never expected to see the vile "a healthy baby is all that matters" crap here on MDC.

Thank you for saying this

For me i have to say that the few hours of labor i was denied because of scare tactics with my first son were hugely important. They definitely weren't "nothing" compared to years and years of motherhood. I am still trying to play catch up.

Just wow. I am kinda speechless at the dismissiveness.

[aprilbaby06]

A healthy baby is mostly all that matters.

I can't even believe that any of you could feel anything different.

[lyttlewon]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

Thank you. After my initial few months of severe depression, I spent almost 10 years telling myself I was over-reacting, and at least ds1 was healthy. I told myself that over and over, because that's what the whole world around me was telling me. When I couldn't conceive, and wondered if the c-section had damaged me forever, I shut myself up, because my c-section wasn't that big a deal, right? When I finally did conceive and lost it...and my next...and my next, I was told that it wasn't because of my surgery (happens to be true, apparently), so I just shut myself up.

When dd finally came along 10 years later, and was another c-section, I didn't talk about how much it hurt, because after all, I finally had my baby, and that's all that counts, right??

It wasn't until I was told that ds2 would have to be another c-section, because I was so damned "high risk" now that I really, fully admitted to myself just how not okay this was with me. I'm not sure if my first clue was the nights I spent tossing and turning because I couldn't sleep, or the nights when I did fall asleep and woke up from nightmares of a blood-splashed OR and my own voice screaming (the first nightmares I'd ever had, I might add), or simply the fact that I didn't enjoy being pregnant at all...the whole pregnancy was just one long bout of tension and dread (to the extent that dh initially said "no more" because he couldn't handle that again). I fought for months and months to get out of that section, and ended up cut again.

For anyone to tell me that all that matters out of all that is that my children are healthy is offensive on a level I can't even describe. For one thing, it completely dismisses an absolute hell I went through (partly because our society refuses to admit that it is hellish for some women)...and partly because it implies that without the surgery, my children wouldn't have been healthy...that I really am broken, and needed the man with the scalpel to get my healthy baby out. If I didn't, then why are people giving me the healthy baby card? If I could have had a healthy baby and not been a convalescent, why is the healthy baby all that matters when I am recovering from surgery?

Okay - that was really long. I was just trying to make the point that this crap greatly interfered with my ability and freedom to process what happened to me in my own way and on my own time. It dismisses what I went through and makes it perfectly okay to force surgery on women...because the surgery doesn't matter, anyway.

Of course, I'm happy that my children are all healthy. But, I'm furious at the implication that it's only because they were cut and violently pushed from my anesthetized body that they are healthy.

Storm Bride I think this is important for people to understand; how the mother feels about the process not how we think she should feel. Supporting a person doesn't involve glossing over or belitting her experience it involves sharing her emotion and agreeing that yes what she feels is important.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

A healthy baby is mostly all that matters.

I can't even believe that any of you could feel anything different.

Okay - tell you what. How about we just beat the crap out of every mom who has a healthy baby without having a traumatic birth...just so she understands that her baby is what counts? Does that sound remotely reasonable? Is it okay to inflict completely unnecessary trauma on someone, then tell them that their trauma doesn't count?

Putting "mostly" into the sentence just makes things fuzzy...it doesn't change the sentiment.

[lyttlewon]

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

A healthy baby is mostly all that matters.

I can't even believe that any of you could feel anything different.

Are you suffering from post traumatic stress and depression from what your body was subjected to during birth? One is not more important than the other that is the point of the PP. I am going to repeat prothyraia because it is important.

There should NOT be an "Or" there. It's an AND. Having a healthy baby is important. Having a good birth is important. Both of them. Not one or the other. Why does saying you're not happy with your birth make people think you're ungrateful for your child, and why do people think the proper way to deal with that is to say Don't Be Sad, You Have a Baby, Your Feelings Are Silly and Meaningless, Your Priorities are Wrong.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by lyttlewon

Storm Bride I think this is important for people to understand; how the mother feels about the process not how we think she should feel. Supporting a person doesn't involve glossing over or belitting her experience it involves sharing her emotion and agreeing that yes what she feels is important.

:
I wish my sections didn't screw me up so much. I don't really enjoy feeling broken. But, if telling myself that I "shouldn't" feel this way didn't do anything, I'm not sure why anybody else thinks telling me that is helpful.

[aprilbaby06]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

Okay - tell you what. How about we just beat the crap out of every mom who has a healthy baby without having a traumatic birth...just so she understands that her baby is what counts? Does that sound remotely reasonable? Is it okay to inflict completely unnecessary trauma on someone, then tell them that their trauma doesn't count?

Putting "mostly" into the sentence just makes things fuzzy...it doesn't change the sentiment.

I have had a tramatic birth ...twice. I am very thankful for both of my healthy babies. I am sure that I could have had my perfect birth. But pushing my dead baby into the hands of her father during our home birth just so that I could have "MY PERFECT BIRTH" just really would have been less of a fullfilling experience for me than having to transfer to a hoppital and be druged so that I could allow a dr. to deliver a live healthy child. Maybe I have my priorties scewed, but the well bieng of my children are worth any beating and trauma that I could ever endure. I would endure anything for them and to secure their safety even if it means having to let go of a dream birth not once but twice.

Where are you ladies getting that you can't feel a way, good or bad, about your birth, from the statement that a healthy baby is all that matters? In the end, isn't a healthy baby the main priority? Is avoiding a tramatic birth really so improtant to some of you that your child matters less than what you had to go through? I hope the ones of you who feel this way are seeking a way of dealing with what ever is going on in your minds. For the sake of both your children and yourselves.

[lyttlewon]

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

I have had a tramatic birth ...twice. I am very thankful for both of my healthy babies. I am sure that I could have had my perfect birth. But pushing my dead baby into the hands of her father during our home birth just so that I could have "MY PERFECT BIRTH" just really would have been less of a fullfilling experience for me than having to transfer to a hoppital and be druged so that I could allow a dr. to deliver a live healthy child. Maybe I have my priorties scewed, but the well bieng of my children are worth any beating and trauma that I could ever endure. I would endure anything for them and to secure their safety even if it means having to let go of a dream birth not once but twice.

But that is YOU not everyone else. You are basically saying based upon your own experience no one else is allowed to feel any differently than you do. Do you understand how you are invalidating other peoples emotions and life experiences by holding yourself as the only way to be?

[aprilbaby06]

Where are you ladies getting that you can't feel a way, good or bad, about your birth, from the statement that a healthy baby is all that matters? In the end, isn't a healthy baby the main priority? Is avoiding a tramatic birth really so improtant to some of you that your child matters less than what you had to go through? I hope the ones of you who feel this way are seeking a way of dealing with what ever is going on in your minds. For the sake of both your children and yourselves.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

I have had a tramatic birth ...twice. I am very thankful for both of my healthy babies. I am sure that I could have had my perfect birth. But pushing my dead baby into the hands of her father during our home birth just so that I could have "MY PERFECT BIRTH" just really would have been less of a fullfilling experience for me than having to transfer to a hoppital and be druged so that I could allow a dr. to deliver a live healthy child. Maybe I have my priorties scewed, but the well bieng of my children are worth any beating and trauma that I could ever endure. I would endure anything for them and to secure their safety even if it means having to let go of a dream birth not once but twice.

Where are you ladies getting that you can't feel a way, good or bad, about your birth, from the statement that a healthy baby is all that matters? In the end, isn't a healthy baby the main priority? Is avoiding a tramatic birth really so improtant to some of you that your child matters less than what you had to go through? I hope the ones of you who feel this way are seeking a way of dealing with what ever is going on in your minds. For the sake of both your children and yourselves.

Wait. You think your births saved your babies? You mean you went through the trauma for a reason??? Then, you have NO idea what I'm talking about. I've been assaulted and battered, and suffered lasting damage to my pelvis and abdomen for no reason. If I had to choose between a traumatic birth and dead baby, then I'd choose the traumatic birth. That's kind of a "duh". That choice also has nothing to do with my reality or my birth history. And, dd is healthy....but she didn't breathe normally until she was a couple of months old. A nurse told me afterwards that "that happens a lot with c-section babies". Good thing my bodily integrity was sacrificed for my baby, huh?

When people give me the healthy baby crap, they're basically saying, "if the doctor hadn't bullied you onto the OR table, your baby wouldn't be healthy", which is BULL. My surgeries were in the doctor's best interest, but not mine, and not my children's. What is a healthy baby, anyway? Is it "healthy" for anybody when a toddler spends over a month hearing her mother scream every time said toddler gives her a hug?? What about the three babies I miscarried, that may have been related to my first c-section (not consented to, I might add)? Don't those babies count?

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

Where are you ladies getting that you can't feel a way, good or bad, about your birth, from the statement that a healthy baby is all that matters?

Saying the baby is all that matters is saying that mom doesn't matter. It's that simple.

[channelofpeace]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

Wait. You think your births saved your babies? You mean you went through the trauma for a reason??? Then, you have NO idea what I'm talking about. I've been assaulted and battered, and suffered lasting damage to my pelvis and abdomen for no reason. If I had to choose between a traumatic birth and dead baby, then I'd choose the traumatic birth. That's kind of a "duh". That choice also has nothing to do with my reality or my birth history. And, dd is healthy....but she didn't breathe normally until she was a couple of months old. A nurse told me afterwards that "that happens a lot with c-section babies". Good thing my bodily integrity was sacrificed for my baby, huh?

When people give me the healthy baby crap, they're basically saying, "if the doctor hadn't bullied you onto the OR table, your baby wouldn't be healthy", which is BULL. My surgeries were in the doctor's best interest, but not mine, and not my children's. What is a healthy baby, anyway? Is it "healthy" for anybody when a toddler spends over a month hearing her mother scream every time said toddler gives her a hug?? What about the three babies I miscarried, that may have been related to my first c-section (not consented to, I might add)? Don't those babies count?

There, you took the words out of my mouth again.

[aprilbaby06]

So sorry to the op about the downward spiral that has occurred with your post and any part in that that I may have had. To help answer what you were asking, it helped me to talk about my birth experiences. Encourage the mother to retell their stories if they seem distressed about their births. I found that letting my feelings out to a few very understanding mamas gave me the most peace with where I had been during birthing my daughters. Crying on there shoulders and listening to them tell about their perspectives of my births really was healing for me. I have also experienced a friend that although her birth went astray from her plans, she was very empowered and please by the experience. They may not need anything but a welcome and congrats to their new babies.

[prothyraia]

To bring this back to to the original post a bit, it's obvious that women can have more than one feeling about their births. Your sister may feel delighted that her baby is here, AND frustrated about how things went, or any other combination of emotions.

It's incredibly important to empathize with her wherever she happens to be at emotionally, even if that involves multiple emotions. You can congratulate her on a beautiful baby without trying to do it so loudly that you drown out any other feelings she might want to express, if they're there.

Women are not infants. Saying "Look at the healthy baby, yaay, happy baby!" if she's upset about not having birth go the way she wanted to does not work nearly as well as saying "Look at the shiny block, yaaay, nice block!" does when my 7 month old is upset because he's not being allowed to chew on my book.

And that's really all the "at least you have a healthy baby" play is.

[prothyraia]

Aprilbaby, I think you're really misunderstanding what folks here are saying.

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

Maybe I have my priorties scewed, but the well bieng of my children are worth any beating and trauma that I could ever endure. I would endure anything for them and to secure their safety even if it means having to let go of a dream birth not once but twice.

That's probably true for almost all women. But that doesn't mean that letting go of that dream isn't allowed to hurt, and to hurt badly. If it doesn't for you, that's wonderful, but it does for many women.

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

Where are you ladies getting that you can't feel a way, good or bad, about your birth, from the statement that a healthy baby is all that matters?

Because why would you feel bad if everything that mattered (baby is healthy) is fine? Why would you get upset, deeply deeply upset, about something that's unimportant? Saying that a healthy baby is all that matters means that the birth experience doesn't matter, and that means that having strong feelings attached to it is inappropriate.

[prothyraia]

Originally Posted by aprilbaby06

In the end, isn't a healthy baby the main priority? Is avoiding a tramatic birth really so improtant to some of you that your child matters less than what you had to go through?

That's the same false pairing of statements that I pointed out earlier OF COURSE a healthy baby is the main priority. OF COURSE avoiding a traumatic birth doesn't matter more than the child. No one here thinks that a lovely birth that ends with a dead baby would be better than surgery. No one is saying that, I don't know anyone who WOULD say that. But saying "a healthy baby is the main priority" and saying "a healthy baby is all that matters" are not the same thing, not by a long shot.

When you say "a healthy baby is all that matters", you are saying that other things, like mom's experience, don't matter. That's hurtful to mothers who are upset.

When we say "mom's experience is important", we're not saying that mom's experience is ALL that matters and that if something happens to baby, ah well, no biggie.:

[aprilbaby06]

: Like I said earlier, I really hope some of you can get the help you so desperately need. May peace come to all of you.

[courtenay_e]

Mamas, please remember that the OP is asking for help, not for bickering about semantics on this thread. Many of us will have different opinions as to what should be said, and, the wonderful thing about MDC is all the different view points we get. Please remember that the OP can take what works for HER and leave the rest. I understand that we may have strong reactions to what is said, and that's okay...but attacking one another is not--especially when the OP is in an emotionally charged situation for HER family, and isn't looking for infighting here.

Yes, it is very important to listen to her feelings and be compassionate, however she feels about the outcome. I'm assuming that, by now, the child has been born. I hope the mother had the kind of birth she was hoping for!

As a birth worker, I've learned to ask very open ended questions and never "lead the witness" so to say, as you may have seen or noticed or felt something about that birth that she never would have thought about, ever, if you hadn't otherwise mentioned it...and something that you feel is positive may not be that way for the mother/father, or visa versa. So. Listen. Be helpful if you can with caring for the house and the family's needs. Love your new neice/nephew. And IF they ask your opinion, hopefully you will have listened to what they've said in the past and reflect it right back at them. IF they ask for resources, look some up for them. OR, if you've found some ahead of time, let them know that if they ever feel like they want to access them, you've got some resources that they might be interested in, and let them approach you when/if they're ready. They may never ask, and if they don't, don't offer anything but babymoon help (laundry, dishes, food prep, etc.).

[Finch]

I think the point every body here is trying to reiterate is that you should follow the mother's lead on how she feels about the birth, and validate those feelings, whatever they may be. That's what matters most. That, and celebrating the arrival of her baby.