Well done! You did it! You had a vaginal birth

[faithfulbird20]

I heard that a lot in hospital recently and it I was wondering why. Just had my second vaginal birth but I was going to be taken for a c section and honest to God. I was terrified, I wouldn't be able to do it. I think people should also say well done for dealing with a c section because it's scary. You should be congratulated for both.

Ps the congratulating was done to other woman (not me...although I know I will get it when midwife comes to see me)...

I’ve had to completely natural home births without more than a paracetamol, but no one has congratulated me. Or even really remarked on it. That said, maybe this person thought you needed to hear that or wished someone had said that to them.

That said, after my second was born, everywhere I went people asked me how breastfeeding was going. I mean random people on the street or neighbours I barely ever talk to. I’m lucky it was going great. But it really struck me. If it hadn’t been going great, it would have been an awful thing for a stranger to interrogate you about.

My SIL actually apologised to her husband for needing so much intervention for her birth. Its bonkers.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I've heard it all over the years. My favourite is always when a woman is pregnant and her partner says "we won't be having pain relief, we don't want it".

Makes me want to get their bollocks in a vice.

May be she had a c section before and had a hope for a natural birth all over her notes?

^ This

Congratulations on your new baby!! 😃

@mindutopia I can be a fucking cow when I want to. I was once asked how BF was going and how my let down was but a near total stranger to me. I just smiled and asked her how her tits we're doing today.

She did a great goldfish impression and walked off.

@TableFlowerss

It’s also a competition as to whether or not you used pain relief and if you had an epidural, well... a friends husband told her that women in other countries have babies behind trees then go back to work and that it can’t be that hard......... needless to say, we fell out!!! What a male chauvinist pig!!!

Oh my friend said this to me too she'd had a baby 6 months previously and had a 6 hour labour with no pain relief. I'd been in labour 3 days and ended up with an episiotomy and ventouse and then got criticised for taking the epidural. It's not just men sadly

Also congratulations OP!!

“Annoy
I was terrified at the thought of a c section. Thankfully I didn’t have to have one

I was terrified at the thought of vaginal birth, thankfully I didn't have to have one.

You see we are all different.

What a patronising and stupid thing to say OP. It reinforces the idea that anything less than natural birth, even if attended with forceps and ongoing issues is a personal failure.”

I didn’t take this from the OP at all! I think she was trying to say she realises that c section is not the ‘easy option’ some people make it out to be and she was glad she didn’t end up having to have one as it would have been scary/sore/traumatic etc. She wasn’t trying to say she’s glad she didn’t ‘fail’!
See, I think a lot of the judgement people experience from having had a section is in their head - they sort of have a chip on their shoulder about it. It’s like people who couldn’t breastfeed. Most people literally couldn’t give a fuck but because they already have their hackles raised they take every comment to mean that someone is judging them. And I say that as someone who has had 2 sections. My first was emergency then second was elective as I didn’t want to go through 4 days of induction then 14 hours of labour again just to end up with another unplanned section and PND. I have never ever felt like a failure for what I went through the first time and never doubted the choice I made for myself the second time either. And interestingly enough I have never experienced any kind of judgement or negativity. Maybe it’s (at least partly!) in our minds.

I’ve never had this said to me, but I have had well done, you did it, literally as I’ve pushed my babies out. But I think that was because I’d had long difficult labours so they were more congratulating me on getting through it. Certainly no one said it to me outside of the labour room.

Otoh, I have seen Facebook posts from new parents announcing the birth, and the fact it was a “natural birth with no pain relief” or whatever which I think is bizarre beyond belief, smug, and designed to make anyone who didn’t have that to feel inadequate.

I wish I’d been offered a c section. Forceps and episiotomy took weeks to recover from, whereas those I know who’ve had c sections made a much speedier recovery.

I know it’s major surgery, but it seems much kinder than the damage that can be done to mother and baby with instrumental vaginal births.

I think vaginal births are currently all the rage, with women made to feel lesser if they don’t plan or achieve one. It’s all very Earth Mother. Any birth is a good birth as long as the baby is delivered safely.

I've had 4 VB and no one at the hospital or otherwise has congratulated my vagina action! Did you maybe say you really really didn't want a c section and so they're pleased you got the birth you wanted?

I did get “well done, you got there in the end” (meant genuinely and kindly) after my EMCS following a long awful labour and failure to progress. I also had a CS the 2nd time and did not get any sense of failure or “what a shame” afterwards, but the pressure to try for a VBAC beforehand from the midwives was huge, even though I was waiting for a booked CS. I went into labour early and had to wait for a CS slot, and they were all around me almost begging me to have a VBAC I didn’t want, and saying things like “there’s always forceps”

I found theatre staff - surgeons and nurses - much, much more supportive and kind than midwives, in general, though a couple of fantastic and sympathetic midwives stood out.

I genuinely think there is - in general, though not everyone - an anti-doctor, anti-medicalisation feeling among midwives that goes too far. Yes a beautiful, successful vaginal birth is lovely. But I needed medicalising, as many of us do. The clue’s in the fact that so many women died in childbirth in the past.

I was told well done after both my births EMCS and VBAC. I would take a VBAC hands down any day.

I couldn’t have had a more medicalised birth and it was great. The part I liked best was where neither of us died.

When I was having mine, it was common for everyone bar the hospital cleaners to be urging you to have an elective caesarian. My consultant was all for it and even my GP urged me to 'think of your perineum', which is not a phrase I ever expected anyone to say to me. Under the circumstances, having a vaginal delivery was something to be congratulated on. It sounds as though the tide has turned and a good thing too. Congratulations on your new baby, anyway.

I think you've read a lot into a comment that was probably specific to that woman. I think they're probably just saying what seems nice in that scenario - both times I gave birth the midwives said I 'did brilliantly ' but I assume that's just what they say rather than a genuine reflection of my birthing prowess - I don't think they were going around saying 'well, you could have tried harder' to other women, I think it's just a nice thing to say to someone who has just been through a huge physical event!

Yes, I believe there is a badge
It’s like the McDonalds staff ones where they add extra stars if you had no pain relief at all.

Congrats on your baby though OP

3 vaginal births and not a single word of congratulation about the way in which I squeezed them out!
Maybe this particular woman was desperate for a VBAC and was successful?

I remember thinking it odd when the midwives told me I was putting those mothers who already had babies to shame, by having such a straight forward, pain relief free (more down to circumstances rather than personal choice) delivery. It made me feel really good at the time. But then my sisters had their babies and both needed intervention (c section and forceps delivery) and they both said they were made to feel like failures by the medical staff, lots of underhanded comments and “oh it’s a shame” sort of thing. I felt awful on their behalf and wondered if this happens a lot (I birthed at a different hospital; they birthed at the same one)

Why does everything these days have to be rewarded with seal claps? We're such an overpraised society.

DS1 was an EMCS after a draining pregnancy, long labour, two hours of pushing and we ended up in HDU and neonatal. It took months to really feel himan again and the first week DH went back to work after his fortnight off I had to decide which floor of the house baby was spening the day on because I still needed both hands to walk on the stairs and couldn't carry him.

Medically, having come so near but yet so far, the chances of VBAC were very high. Emotionally, I didn't have a good association for CS and I was open to the idea of a 3rd baby so avoiding a second CS seemed wise.

I made it to pushing with DS2, but he reached a point of struggling to pick up the heart rate. Being a VBAC there was no time for patience, so I was whisked off to theatre and prepped for another CS. Closer investigation reavealed DS to be just about stuck of the point of no return and in a briefing after, it was better to incurr the damage of a vaginal delivery than incurr similar damage to get him back up to do the CS. But as I laid there numb and unaware of what the next few months were like, it was fucking amazing to give birth, complete the job I felt like I'd been thrawted at before, and best of all have the experience of my newly born baby in my arms for the first time.

Objectively, the healthiest birth in the circumstances is the healthiest birth in the circumstances, but a lot of emotions, experience and often trauma get muddled up in that and there are several reasons why it maybe appropriate to congratuate a woman in that way.

What I don't understand is why pain in childbirth is almost fetishised.

The more pain you went through, the better mother and person in general you are.

I have never understood why on Earth you wouldn't want to help yourself feel less pain? You wouldn't go to the dentist and have your tooth removed without pain relief. And I know the answer to that is, "my baby isn't a tooth!" But why is it different? (I know some people can say it might lead to more interventions).

But pain as a badge of honour? Not for me, thanks.

Weird, I can't imagine that being something a midwife says routinely. I've certainly never said it to someone and haven't heard any colleagues do it either, although I know I can't speak for every midwife ever. I say congratulations to everyone and compliment the baby, but not the mode of birth! I have been in situations where we've really hyped up a vaginal birth though (discreetly) and it's definitely because that individual woman has a history no one else in the ward would be aware of

There are indeed no badges for not having pain relief - I don't know where this idea you get lots of praise and approval comes from? I had two births with gas and air and no one rolled out any red carpets... It's a bit like in a conversation with a friend sad that breastfeeding didn't work out she said that 'everyone praises breastfeeding mothers all the time' - I can't think of a time that I've been praised. I sympathized with her feelings which were very real, but she'd sort of built up in her head an idea that other women were getting constant approval so she must be being judged, whereas in reality no one else cares or much notices, and I think the same is true of how you give birth - there isn't some sort of secret straightforward vaginal club where we get a gold star and told that we're the best mummies now!

@faithfulbird20

I heard that a lot in hospital recently and it I was wondering why. Just had my second vaginal birth but I was going to be taken for a c section and honest to God. I was terrified, I wouldn't be able to do it. I think people should also say well done for dealing with a c section because it's scary. You should be congratulated for both.

Ps the congratulating was done to other woman (not me...although I know I will get it when midwife comes to see me)...

Nobody said it to me. The state of my downstairs (prolapse) before I was even 30 I wish they’d whipped him out the sunroof!