To be annoyed at the smuggy smugness? why is childbirth such a competion?

[AddictedIsFeelingHappy]

i'm 38+3 weeks pregnant and am getting irrationally annoyed by every thing.

a friend of mine had her baby yesterday and on facebook (i know its the spawn of satan) her status is along the lines of

'baby x arrived weeighing 8lb 4oz in a birthing pool, i had no pain relief drugs, even with a very long labour. come on ladies we can do what nature intended'

now i'm already alittle annoyed because she was due the day before me and has already had her baby, and mine is still not here. (irrational i know!)
but why put that about the drugs? you dont get a medal for doing it all naturally and it doesnt make you a failure if you do need drugs.

gah now i'm all annoyed and wound up and cant sleep [hangry]

Olifin, LeQueen is just doing exactly what Titty did: suggesting that dislike of a type of bragging certain statement must due to personal insecurities. Not to boast, but to show how silly and passive agressive this argument is.

And before I get accused of vagina smugness, let me just point out that I am the woman whose GP's sole concern was to get her into hospital to be restitched "because the best gift you can give your little girl is a father".

I achieved a natural delivery with no pain relief AND i've also had a csection AND my pelvic floor is tight as a drum!! Does that make me considerably more superior than you lot?!!

Seriously though, it's bolleaux that having a vaginal delivery means you're fanjo is like a wizards sleeve thereafter... If you avoid forceps etc you are even more like to spring back into shape darn quick!

And why the nastiness on this thread? Let people feel proud/ grateful/ euphoric about whatever birth they've had. I felt chuffed as anything with myself after delivering my first, large, poorly positioned baby without pain relief- i felt incredibly empowered and like I could achieve anything. I felt amazed and eternally grateful for the csection and neonatal intensive care that saved dc 2 life, and bloody relieved to manage a vbac naturally with dc 3 . All perfectly legitimate feelings.

Haven't seen that on the thread tbh, I think everyone agreed that the OPs friend sounded a bit nuts with the 'cmon ladies' rallying call. But to feel proud that you've just delivered a first baby naturally? Why not, perfectly normal reaction. It doesn't need to imply anything about anyone elses experience, unless they want to read that into it. I think women are concerned about their OWN choices (as far as they're available ) and their OWN experiences. I don't care whether other women give birth pumped to the eyeballs with drugs or whether they give birth in the middle of a field while chanting to mother earth- I cared about how I delivered MY babies

I would like to boast about the superior craftmanship of my amazing locum doctor. He took ages stitching me up where he'd cut me and when I look down there with a mirror takes me a good while to locate my very faint scar.
God bless that man.

Ah, suddenly realised what's wrong with me. Giving birth didn't actually call on "my deepest reserves of courage and stoicism". (a bout of pleurisy did that).

Totally agree VH. I care about my experiences, not anyone else's.

I am really proud of my babies' births and feel they were an achievement. Doesn't mean I make judgements about others' births or feel smug about it.

LeQueen, the vast majority on this thread agree that it would be ok for someone to feel proud of their VB and to tell people they had got through it without drugs, but not to suggest that other women have somehow done it wrong or missed out.

Likewise, it is perfectly ok, as far as I'm concerned, for any woman to say she is relieved that she didn't have a VB as she is pleased to have her pelvic floor intact (if she is of the mistaken belief that all VBs affect pelvic floor strength and that those who don't have VBs are safe from pelvic floor damage) but not ok to sneer and speculate about the state of other women's fanjos.

What I do find funny is that you claim not to go around boasting that 'I have a pelvic floor so tight you could bounce your car keys off it' and yet you did exactly that earlier in this thread, word for word!

And in answer to your earlier question: no, I'm not worried about my pelvic floor. Though perhaps I should be as blatantly my OH is going around telling everyone it is not good enough

Your 'analogy' seemed a badly-disguised excuse to be bitchy from where I'm sitting.

"but why put that about the drugs? you dont get a medal for doing it all naturally and it doesnt make you a failure if you do need drugs.
"

I had a totally drug free birth, 6 hours for a first baby. I tell people because I want other first timers to realise that it is possible and you might be one of the lucky ones. So many people say "oh it'll be awful, you'll have a CS/epidural etc" that I think it makes a change when someone has a positive birth story that doesn't end in forceps.

And why should those of us that have totally natural births not talk about it ? And believe you me, when you have given birth you'll want to talk about it to anyone that will listen.

"You've got to ask yourself - why are so many people here so keen to interpret this comment in the darkest possible light? I don't believe for one minute that the girl who wrote the fb comment believes that everyone who tries hard enough can give birth without help. "

Well said Titty. I think people are rather overanalysing things

I'm smug when it comes to my birth. There I said it. I'm smug because I was determined to have it drug free and natural. And it was and in 4 hours it was over without a tear. And although it was at home-it wasn't in a pool (like hell could I life my leg that high during labour).

But yeah I'm smug because it went to plan-not because of how it was. It's hardly survival of the fittest is it?

And I agree with whoever said that it's refreshing to hear a positive birthing story instead of all the nightmarish bollocks I'm forever reading about.

I deliberately stayed at home to ensure I couldn't "turn" to medicine. Thankfully it didn't even get that far that I wanted to. And yeah I'm proud of that. So shoot me.

"And believe you me, when you have given birth you'll want to talk about it to anyone that will listen."

You make it sound as if you had some new information to impart to the uninitiated. A fair few of us have actually given birth, you know. And experienced the event in different ways according to circumstances/personality/expectations etc. Personally, I never felt any particular need to stress the absence of epidurals and pethidine in the days when I told my birth story. Or indeed to think of this as some kind of achievement.

I think that's wrong. A lot of women aspire to a particular birth plan-hence the point in making one.

And if Whales and smiling and a mariachis band is the way you want to do it and it keeps you more focused on the task in hand, then why the hell not?

It is afterall JUST childbirth. I personally don't believe in going into hospital unless you are ill, and having a child does not constitute as being "ill".

If I have a bad tooth and pull it out myself, without pain relief, in the style of Tom Hanks in Castaway, should I be proud because it's "what nature intended?" Or am I a bit of a loon? Back in the day, there wasn't pain relief for teeth or giving birth. Now there is for both. Why is it that nobody in their right mind would extract their own painful teeth yet they would happily suffer a painful birth?

I had a fantastic C-section, a fantastic recovery and am tighter than tight down there. I don't brag about it on Facebook though, mainly because it's TMI but also because it might upset those who had a natural birth but definitely still feel baggy down there and "only 75% back to normal" in the words of one girl friend.

Giving birth (be it vaginally or by CS) is something to be proud of. I honestly can't see how having no pain relief is anything to be proud of though. Why is it something to be proud of? You have pain relief or you don't, so what?

I just don't see why those of us who manage to go without pain relief are condemned...constantly hearing some sort of defence and justification that pumping chemicals into your body is a good thing that should be promoted...

Do as you all wish-but remember it isn't really the natural birth "givers" that are soooo hett up on the topic of natural birth, it's always those who take the pain relief-perhaps they're the ones guilt ridden.

If I could get a medal with it printed on I would.

Funny because my pelvic floor is better than it was before my ds was born. And I don't have any nasty scars or stretch marks. Guess I'm smug about that too.

An example of those who don't aspire to doing it au naturel: My friend talked about nothing but an epidural since the day she peed on a stick. In the end she was induced and went so quickly they didn't have time to do one. She was quite gutted by that! Especially when I told her a full spinal block made me numb from the tits down. :o

InGodWeTrust "I just don't see why those of us who manage to go without pain relief are condemned...constantly hearing some sort of defence and justification that pumping chemicals into your body is a good thing that should be promoted..."

Well I just don't see that those who have pain relief are condemned as chemical-pumping women who think it's a good thing that should be promoted.

How can you be so hypocritial in the same sentence, let alone the same post?

"Do as you all wish" (thanks - I will! ) -but remember it isn't really the natural birth "givers" that are soooo hett up on the topic of natural birth"

Are you.... sure?

Totally agree re ego, LeQueen.

I don't have any nasty scars or stretch marks either! But I'm not smug about it because, er, it's really quite a sad thing to be smug about.