In brief, this is my gripe. I was induced as an emergency at 38 weeks due to sudden, severe pre-eclamptic liver failure. As you might expect, a fully interventionist birth followed - straight to large doses of drip syntocinon (no messing about with pessaries ? time was of the essence), not allowed to get up from the bed (due to monitoring), unbearable contractions, epidural, episiotomy, forceps. My baby, however, was fine, as was I (eventually).
There was nothing whatever I could have done about the way the birth went. I was exhausted from the liver failure (anyone who has had that will know just how depleted of energy you get). I couldn?t have an active labour due to the need for monitoring, and lying flat on your back makes for very painful contractions ? and the medical staff were only too happy for me to have an epidural, as they weren?t at all sure I?d have the strength to actually birth the baby without a C-section. Forceps were always going to be necessary, due to lying on my back and therefore effectively having to push the baby uphill. But I ? we ? coped, and all was well in the end.
So why do women who are lucky enough to have a normal, active labour, without pain relief other than G&A, and no interventions, get told that they ?did really well?, when people like me are not? I heard so much of it on the post-natal ward, from the midwives themselves as well as family/friends of other newly delivered mothers. Given my circumstances, didn?t I do well too? And why not for emergency C-sections also, where the woman has to go through the trauma of unexpected major surgery?
It just seems to reinforce the idea that childbirth is a competitive display of physical prowess, and that those of us who need medical help to give birth safely have somehow failed. When to me, it seems to be the luck of the draw.