The attitude of "I'll try" regarding birth (and bfing, etc)

[DoomaYula]

Most people I know think that "I'll try" is a great attitude regarding birth and bfing and everything else.

I'll try to have a "natural" birth (in a hospital). I'll try to go without an epidural. I'll try to avoid induction, or a c-s. I'll try to breastfeed.

The births I've attended that have been really empowering for the moms have included moms who were DETERMINED to go without meds, or determined to go into labor on their own, or determined to bf.

I just can't imagine saying to my midwife, "Well, I'll try to have a homebirth." : I'm GOING to have a homebirth. It simply is. I'm GOING to breastfeed. etc.

It seems like women are so intent on not feeling guilty that they will give themselves every opportunity to go multiple directions with every decision.

[blissful_maia]

Sets women up for failure, I think. It just shows that they think these things are really difficult to do, huge obstacles, etc. Going into something with an attitude of "I'll try" rather than "I will" makes it a whole lot easier to give up when the going gets tough.

[the_lissa]

I agree. I never said I would try to breastfeed or try to have a home birth. I said I was going to.

I had a lot of bf problems with my first, and I think my attitude helped me succeed.

[GrrlyElizabeth]

Just a thought... I know some women say, "I'll try," to avoid engaging with naysayers, especially when it comes to natural birth. You know how much some people love to trot out their horror stories to pregnant women. And frankly, those horror stories are what make so many women think that trying is the best they can do. (It boggles my mind how many women think that breastfeeding is so precarious that it truly might not work -- how do they think our species survived?! But I digress.)`

I feel your pain, but I think all we can do is encourage these women and offer a few suggestions to give them what they need to be successful.

[chandasz]

Hmmm... I look at this a bit differently.

I always say "I plan to..." not I will. Reason being is that sometimes things are out of our control and I don't want to set myself up for "failure".

This is what caused me to feel this way.... my cousin was deadset on a homebirth and so was another dear friend. Both of them ended up in hospital due to complications out of their control. They had been completely committed to the process but there were real complications. They both ended up having healthy babies-- 1 via c-section. Yet- they BOTH felt as if they had failed themselves.

I think it's important to be committed to the natural process and trust birth and also understand that sometimes things are out of our control and that sometimes things don't go as planned and if we can roll with what we need to roll with to keep ourselves and our babies healthy- we can have a more fulfilling experience.

For me-- I planned to have a waterbirth for my first daughter's birth. Well, water ended up slowing things down for us and I was falling asleep and no longer pushing effectively after 2 1/2 hours. Instead of insisting that I was GOING TO HAVE A WATERBIRTH-- I got out of the tub and had an amazing squatting birth! It was fantastic. With daughter #2 I got the waterbirth I wanted!

Just my .02

[the_lissa]

I guess it depends on the person. I had a transfer with my first, and I didn't feel like a failure. I understand what happened and why. If I transferred after saying I'd try, then I might feel like it was lack of effort on my part.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

I have found that commitment is pretty essential for natural hospital birth and for breastfeeding, most of the time. Both are challenging, and if you've already told yourself that you'll try but it's okay if you don't do it, it's much easier to say nevermind when it's hard.

[Mrs.Floyd]

I use 'I'll try' or 'I plan' or 'I'm hoping to' etc. b/c I'm basically the last of my friends to give birth to my first child and *none* of them have been as educated as I am on natural birth/breastfeeding/etc, so anytime I tell them what I'm *going* to do I get bombarded with 'well, things don't always go the way you think they will' or 'you're not going to care once you get there' or 'you never know what's going to happen' or 'you're just going to feel bad when it doesn't work out' or 'how can you possibly *plan* a birth!?' It's soooooooooo annoying. I feel like they're justifying the fact that they had things done to them that they wouldn't have wanted but didn't know better, and that they're afraid I'm on some 'high horse' about how my birth's going to be 'better' than theirs or something. So whenever I talk about birth/breastfeeding/cloth diapers/etc, I always preface it with the 'I'm hoping/planning/trying' so I don't get the lecture about not being flexible enough.

[DoomaYula]

A primip told me recently that part of her desire to stay med-free during her long hospital labor was that she'd told EVERYONE that she was having a med-free birth, and she didn't want to go back and say, No, I gave in and got the epidural.

[Kitten]

I said "I'll try" for a lot of things that I definitely knew I was going to do, like BF or not have an epidural, etc and then I'd change the subject. Usually I found that people would bring these things up to freak me out about something or share some kind of horror story, and I just didn't want to waste that kind of psychic energy on that kind of person.

I really didn't give a flying fig what they thought on whatever subject they had brought up, I just got tired of talking about all of it. I was very committed to the choices I had made and was just trying to find a more polite way of saying MYOB.

So don't assume that someone saying "I'll try" is being wishy-washy, maybe they are just tired of being asked about something for the ten billionth time. Remember that you are maybe askign this person a question for the first time, but they've probably heard it for many months already.

[Snowdrift]

I also say "I plan to." To me, saying "I will" is disrespectful to people who planned on doing those things and were not able (or didn't try hard enough...but not my place to try to make that determination).

[SublimeBirthGirl]

One of my students once made it through her labor naturally in large part because her husband kept reminding her she'd have to go back and tell everyone they were right, she DIDN'T do it naturally. That appealed to her competitive spirit.

[KBinSATX]

Sorry but I was prepared for (almost) every possible outcome as well. I really wanted a homebirth and I got my homebirth. I know DH and the midwives were getting a bit worried at one point and transfer could have been a possibility. Stuff happens. I prepared to breastfeed (gave away formula samples and attended LLL meetings while pregnant, etc.) but if it wouldn't have worked out I wouldn't count myself a failure. I know one woman whose baby is almost 1 year old and she never was able to breastfeed but has been pumping for the last 12 months.
I am very happy with my approach. Striving (or trying) for the best but being prepared for whatever life throws at ya is what works for me and my family.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

Originally Posted by tie-dyed

I also say "I plan to." To me, saying "I will" is disrespectful to people who planned on doing those things and were not able (or didn't try hard enough...but not my place to try to make that determination).

I disagree. Your decisions and plans have nothing to do with another person's outcomes.

[loraxc]

I'm with chandasz here. I said "I WILL." I meant it. I sobbed all the way to the hospital for my transfer (it was definitely not at my request!) and felt like a wretched, wretched failure for months.

For my second birth, yes, "I plan to." With full acknowledgement that birth is a great mystery, and that I love and value myself even if my birth is not the one I dreamt of and strived for.

I think some of this is individual to the woman. If you expect a great deal of yourself and tend to think in black and white (ahem, me, pregnant with my first), saying that you WILL and then not having it happen can be devastating. I do agree that you need to commit as far as possible to your ideals--while still understanding, again, that birth cannot be tamed, perfected, and controlled.

[Juvysen]

I believe I told all the hospital staff that I wanted to go without pain meds... so no one offered, it helped me get through it because I had to actually think "do I *really* want to ask?" you know? My midwife *did* say to keep my mind open to the possibility of pain meds before hand, though... so I did, but the thought of a catheter in my back for an epidural or taking a narcotic after avoiding everything (even caffiene) during my pregnancy kind of freaked me out so I perservered even through the pit.

I definitely use the "I plan to..." approach, though... it keeps things less open for others to tell me of how they "HAD to have an epidural" or "just COULDN'T breastfeed". I also agree that with birth and parenting, you really never know. Things that sound preposterous before hand somehow have a way of feeling like "the ONLY way" once you're in the midst.

[Dov'sMom]

I think this is a matter of personality.

I said I'd "try" to have a med-free birth, and I did, despite 52 hours of excruciating back labor. I was going to "try" to breastfeed "as long as possible" and my 8 month old son is still going strong despite my being 3 months pregnant. The same way I was going to "try" to pass my finals four weeks after giving birth and I ended up with high honors.

I don't believe in saying "I will" do anything that's not entirely in my control. The fact is, it was NOT in my control to have an unmedicated vaginal birth -- something could have been seriously wrong. That's one linguistic issue I have.

Also, I personally feel more motivated to do something I said I would "try" to do than something I said I "would" do. If I had said I "would" have an unmedicated labor, I wouldn't have been able to keep patting myself on the back hour by hour about how far I had gotten -- instead, every time it got hard, I would have thought "I can't do it, so I might as well quit now."

[jennica]

I think if it is a womans first baby, then saying she will try is not that hard to understand. She has no idea how labor will be for her, how it will feel, how she will react to it, how her partner will react, how the care provider/doula/birth setting she has chosen will treat her while she is birthing. She simply has no frame of refference for this experience, so to say she will do something may not feel as truthful as saying that she will try to do it.

Now that I have given birth once, I do say "I am going to have a homebirth next time" and I get annoyed when people say, "are you going to try for a homebirth"? So in my opinion, I think it's more about feeling somewhat confident in what you are doing and having a certain knowledge about what it will be like.

However, I do like the phrase "I plan to" and I think I will try to use that from now on. "I plan to" feels like "I know I can do it, but if something happens outside of my control then the plans might change." I like the implication of that.

[mothragirl]

i said "i will", and i did, and i will do it again . i think saying it helped me be strong.

[BetsyS]

Originally Posted by Dov'sMom

Also, I personally feel more motivated to do something I said I would "try" to do than something I said I "would" do. If I had said I "would" have an unmedicated labor, I wouldn't have been able to keep patting myself on the back hour by hour about how far I had gotten -- instead, every time it got hard, I would have thought "I can't do it, so I might as well quit now."

This is more my personality type, too. I said that I was going to try to breastfeed. What I meant was barring any unusual, unsurmountable obstacles. We're "still" breastfeeding at 10.5 months, so it wasn't an excuse to not breastfeed, just a different way to express it.

I did feed formula, one bottle, 2 nights in a row at days 3 and 4. My personality is an easy to give up personality--If I had said over and over, I'm GOING to breastfeed, then that formula would have been failure, and I probably would have given up completely.

It's just a different way of seeing the world.