to be sad I'll never experience labour and vaginal birth?

[Makudonarudo]

Have 3 beautiful DSs. All C-sections and have never been in labour. Would've tried for a VBAC with DS2 but had complete placenta previa along with other issues and there's less than a year between DS2&3 and rupture was a concern.

Did have a 'natural cesarean' with DS3 which was lovely (he was 'born' onto my tummy very slowly, no screens or anything, god bless the NHS).

But watching One Born Every Minute and reading birth stories makes me a bit sad. We've completed our family now (DH has had the snip), which I'm a bit weepy about anyway, but it seems like giving birth and labouring are such primal strong female things (in the good way) - really affirming and amazing, to birth a child so actively.

And I am a bit ! Even though I know you poo while you're pushing and stuff!

I appreciate so much that my children were delivered safely and that I didn't suffer any of the appalling birth traumas I've read about, but I just feel like it's an experience I'm the poorer for not having had.

AIBU? I know IAB silly...

But excellent use of the word "dystopia", ShowOfHands.

I thought so too Cinnabar.

yes definitely
If you have missed out on something then it is unfair for people who have had a bad experience with it to come on and say "You're lucky, get over yourself, grow up"

Some horrible unsympathetic posts on here,

Having had 2 Csections I know just how you feel OP. In fact when my DDs were very young I really didn't think about it, I was just glad they had arrived safely. However as I have got older, I do think "Oh I'll never experience a "normal" delivery" and I do feel sad about it.

OBEM has made it worse by the way, but I do love watching it.

Quite frankly, anyone who can tell the OP she's got no right to be wistful because she isn't having difficulty conceiving and isn't suffering from birth trauma is about as bitter and unsympathetic as I could imagine. Honestly, would anyone get away with saying "Stop moaning about your child's disfiguring injuries because at least they're not dead/at least you can have children/there are people starving in Africa"? Repellent attitude.

Showofhands - excellent posts. A voice of reason.

OP YANBU, I had an ECS with DS. I love him, bonded with him etc etc BUT I do have moments and yes watching OBEM is one of them where I feel it was 'too clinical'. I had an epidural, laid down, screen erected, cut, pull stitch - I actually did nothing while someone else took MY baby off to clean him up and then me. I was stuck like my newboorn son on my back for 24 hours (epidural complications) and needed caring for just like him. And the sight of my blood on swabs in a giant cookpot and up the Op Theatre wall when they moved the screen was the clincher for me

TBH over the past 6 years it hasn't dogged or affected my every waking thought or over taken my life. Its a bit like anything thing else where I think -maybe I could have done that differently, or I wish it had happened this way.

Doesn't everyone think like that occasionally??

I think plenty of people who had a horrid vaginal delivery have a wistful feeling they would have liked a nice calm bonding vaginal birth, so you are not being unreasonable by wishing for that either. But it is just a wish, and not necessarily what you would have got. Vaginal births can be very clinical and surgical, once they get the scissors out and start sewing if you need intervention...

I did enjoy my second birth, though, and it was a slighly amazing experience. Not empowering (not sure what that is) but definitely an amazing physical event, which did help wipe the memory of the first horrible vaginal delivery, so I can understand why you would think that type of birth would be nice.