Am I a narcisist?

[herwitsend]

I am a CBE in training, and am suddenly the go-to person for all of my friends (and all of their friends) who want to have a better birth "this time". Like the poster in another thread right now, these women are looking for some way to process their traumatic experiences. I think this desire sometimes sends us on a search for information, and I'm the source right now... It is my tendency, when talking to these women, to feel guilty that I had a good experience, to feel like women will not take me seriously because my labor was 5 1/2 hours (as if I somehow didn't have a valid birth experience).

I guess I am trying to figure out how best to relate to students who have had long, hard labors and disappointing birth experiences without making it about me (even if it is only in my head). I want to address the difficult things in my class, but the comments like "you are lucky you only labored for a few hours" are making me question my ability to do this and making me feel like I have to defend my experience... that my 5 1/2 hours of labor were intense from the start, I never had "early" labor, I vomited a lot, etc.

Any help? Am I being too self-absorbed? What do you do? Do you even share your birth experience with students?

[onlyboys]

I do.

I encourage questions about any experience I've had or heard about or witnessed. I think that anecdotal discussions have the tendency to be either really worrisome or really educating for women, and lord knows they hear enough scare stories outside my classes.

Like you, I felt awkward about discussing my stories...I didn't want this to be Amanda's Four Births 101, but what I found as I chose *not* to talk about them was that the questions the couples had for me were specifically ABOUT my births. I teach in a freestanding birth center, where there aren't any medicated births, and so most of the questions had to do with whether or not I had delivered without meds.

I do have the history of long labors, though, so instead of having to feel defensive, I find myself saying, "But, your experience will be different than my own," so as not to worry them unnecessarily.

It sounds like you had a precipitous birth, and I'd bring up your story in context of that variation of normal, with the prelude that precipitous births are intense and often without warning, and come fraught with their own perils.

[InaX5]

I agree with "onlyboys" so I won't get into this to much but my births ranged (on the low end 10 min (my first labour) 1.5 hours (my last birth), to 47 hrs, 45min, yes from the start of active labour (my third) 18 hrs (my 2nd) & 11 hrs (my fourth, if your counting & confused I lost a baby) and I got to tell you that longer does not mean harder. By far my shortest 2 had the most intense contractions, one on top of the other. Plus it's all relative. The birth I had the hardest time dealing with was the one labour where baby was facing the right way & I was saved from yet another back labour; except I was used to back labour & knew how to deal with that...lol. Every expeirence is just as valid. Part of what you are teaching is good ways to handle the pain, and pain is relative. If the worst thing that ever happened to you was road rash from a bike spill, that is still the worst pain you have ever felt.

[*Jade*]

I know it's not the same, but I often feel the same in my work, which is mental health. The feeling is close to guilt that my life has been easy, and hasn't been turned upside down by illness. But I think what it comes down to with me, is that any profession that helps people is based on empathy, being able to put yourself in their place even if you haven't been there exactly. I know in my work, having the experience of mental illness in the family is considered to be a major bonus when working with families, however I believe that even though direct experience is not something I have, I bring other skills, other experiences that mean that I can help even without that.

[Midwife Kris]

Originally Posted by herwitsend

I guess I am trying to figure out how best to relate to students who have had long, hard labors and disappointing birth experiences without making it about me (even if it is only in my head). I want to address the difficult things in my class, but the comments like "you are lucky you only labored for a few hours" are making me question my ability to do this and making me feel like I have to defend my experience... that my 5 1/2 hours of labor were intense from the start, I never had "early" labor, I vomited a lot, etc.

The easiest way to not have to defend yourself is not to use yourself as the comparison or example. When we are new and don't have experiences to draw upon it's easy to put ourselves in that position of comparison but it inevitably and inadvertently makes us the focus. One of my mentors said she could always tell who was the newest to the birth team in the room because that person was the one who related everything about the woman's experience to herself.

Before I had a lot of experience I would use my personal experiences in the context of "another woman" and gradually my personal experiences could be shifted to the professional experiences I gained. Maybe that would work for you. Or take the experiences you read about in books and online or from the women you work with instead and leave yourself out of it.

[herwitsend]

metromidwife: you nailed it on the head! I feel like I'm the new kid who always has to make everything about me!

When you use other's experiences do you get their permission even if you don't use their name?

[Midwife Kris]

I haven't used many direct experiences as the examples but used them as ideas to talk about and make sort of "composite characters" in a story. So the answer is no, that I haven't asked for permission because there is no one woman I base anything on.