To not get why a vaginal birth is so important to some people?

[Liketochat1]

Some mothers talk of the trauma and disappointment of not giving birth vaginally. Some say they don't feel like a proper woman or that their body failed them. For many this sounds very traumatic, for others moaning.
AIBU to not 'get' why this is so important to them? I've had 2 c sections and was only intensely grateful that I live in a country and in an age where there are gifted surgeons and resources available to perform these life saving operations. In other parts of the world women are dying in childbirth as they don't have access to these.
Am I so unreasonable to think this?

Blue shoes - i am sooo proud that no midwives have ever looked or made me suffer the indignity of an internal examination - the most i had was the catheter, but was numb by then!

blueshoes - most men couldn't tell your fanny from the next woman's in a dark room.

The only rationale I can think of for wanting a 'pristine' fanny is if you're paid to put it on regular public display, because visible perineal scarring is never popular in porn circles.

Moomin - had cerclage twice. Was sorely disappointed when had stitch out at 39 weeks and baby didn't follow promptly. In fact I think the second time my cervix was stitched it sort of healed shut, and then took 36 agonising hours of contractions to open.

ah, joining, I had a few internal exams for my first, but it ended up a crash cs under GA before I was anywhere near fully dilated. But my second was an elective and how lovely it was - just the catheter as you said.

I consider a scheduled cs the rolls royce of births. Not a very conventional view perhaps but it works very well for me.

Fathers don't have to suffer any pain or indignity to have children. Why should women think it their lot in life to have to experience it before they are fully considered a 'woman'? Fathers are as much bonded to their children as women without all that palaver. I cannot imagine feeling guilty or inadequate for having lucked out.

jointhegang- I'm talking about what I feel about myself.

Shag, your dh does not give you head? I don't know about a man not being able to tell one woman from the next in the dark ...

If I was happy at having secured an elective cs, I suspect my dh was even happier, not least because he was off the hook as a birth partner but also probably because he would not have to deal with any potential trauma.

shagmund My first baby was born vaginally and had lactose / milk protein intolerance and asthma, eczema and hayfever which thankfully he has grown out of. My DS2 - c section, so far very healthy.

And by early nutrition, if you mean solely milk, well formula isn't bad for babies and there are plenty of happy, healthy adults who were formula fed. This is part of the reason why women feel like failures, there is too much emphasis on 'breast is best'. It most likely is but not everyone can or wants to breast feed.

By the way, I BF DS1 until 8 weeks when it became apparent he was allergic to my milk, and BF DS2 for 6 months so I am not anti breast feeding, I just know sometimes it is hard work and not in the best interests of mother or child.

Blueshoes, surely you can imagine then how you would have felt if someone had told you you HAD to have a VB for your second? Is it so hard to imagine how it would feel the other way around (which is more commonly the case)?

I repeat, it's really not to do with the type of birth in itself, but everything to do with how the woman in question feels about the type of birth she had.

If nothing else is evident from what people have shared in this thread, then that surely is...

db
xx

I sometimes wonder what a labour is like as I never had one, not even a bradston hicks to be honest I was so doped up for the 6 weeks before birth I could have done and not noticed over the SPD pain and cardiac problems, I often joke my Dt's would still be insitu if they hadn't been forcible evicted by CS.
then I see one born every minute and those thoughts evaporate, I am grateful me and mine are alive, they where both footling presentation which I had never heard of and I thought I knew it all, My Mum was a midwife and used to go through each and every birth over Dinner :) but this was a new one on me and found out whilst watching an episode of ER after they where born, scary.

designer, I never said I cannot imagine how hard women find it if they wanted a natural birth but ended up with a cs instead.

I have a good imagination. And I also experienced a bit of it at my first birth by crash cs having planned a natural delivery.

Am I not allowed to be overjoyed at having only had cs?

Blueshoes, I think it's brilliant you are so happy with your CSs. Really, honestly, truly.

I'm just asking you to imagine why other women might not be, and might struggle emotionally afterwards... Because some might feel about a CS the way you feel about a VB, rightly or wrongly and for whatever reason.

Not everyone is as happy about their experiences as you are. I wish they were.

db
xx

I don't fully get the emotions involved but I feel yab-a tad-u. It's all very well sitting there happy that your c-section went so well. Other people could have had a really rough ride of it. I also get that we live in a world where people set themselves false ideals. Someone feeling shitty after a section may well idealise 'natural' birth and worry that their body didn't do what it 'was meant' to do. Thinking logically historic precedent was that many more women died giving birth. Thank fuck we live in a time when that's is less likely thanks to surgical intervention.

designer, I am not sure what you want me to say. My first post on this thread is:

"I guess it goes to show how different women can perceive things."

These are MY feelings and mine alone. I am not invalidating anyone else's.

Panda - with respect, I don't think it's right to make confident assertions about something as important as nutritional choices not mattering, on the strength of your personal experience with your own dc's.

"Shag, your dh does not give you head? I don't know about a man not being able to tell one woman from the next in the dark ..."

Well, maybe my husband is a bit more red-blooded and less squeamish than yours as he has no problem with this despite my massive episiotomy scar from my forceps birth.

Have to say, watching a woman lying flat on her back, naked from the waist down, with DVT stockings on, with a bladder catheter in place, surrounded by strangers, 'dignity' and 'privacy' are not words that tend to spring to mind.

I know blueshoes... I'm really not saying you are.

I'm just saying that posts like yours show more clearly than anything how this really isn't about CS vs VB. It's about how women feel about what they had.

[Someone up thread did get slammed for saying how delighted they were with their VB, though... Which isn't really fair. We ought to be going 'YAY for you' to both her and you, really...]

I think the bottom line is people will generally defend their choices to the death, whatever they are.

I've had surgery while I was awake. It was good in the sense that it didn't hurt, I wasn't sick and the staff were nice. I also know what it's like to meet my baby for the first time. I can imagine that a combination of uncomplicated surgery plus meeting baby must equal a happy birth.

Shag, fair dos to your animal of a dh. Forgive me if I feel a little queasy myself.

As for dignity and privacy, it is all relative isn't it?

Keep pouring cold water. Not sure why you feel you need to ...

Personally I don't think anyone can understand the colossal hormonal high that results from many (not all) vaginal births, and the profound impact it can have on the experience of the first two days of motherhood, unless they've experienced it themselves.

shagmund I don't believe I said that. I merely pointed out my own personal experience and that formula does not harm babies, nor does it mean ff babies will be unhealthy as adults.

Shag, I would trade that hormonal high for the certainty of no vaginal trauma. As all men do, in a way, not that they have a choice ...

shagmund I had a vaginal birth and felt shit for weeks afterwards. Did I do something wrong?

Not does the 2 days affect men's ability to bond ...

Blueshoes, I just can't be doing with the whole 'virgin fanny' fetish. It's just so misogynist. Women don't have to have bodies like little girls to be sexually attractive to men. Really they don't. (well, not normal men anyway).

Panda merely said that formula isn't bad for babies. Which it isn't

And I think that saying "no-one can appreciate how wonderful it is to give birth vaginally unless they have done it" is very dismissive to the many people who might originally liked to have done it, but can't for whatever reason.

I do think that some women who have straightforward vaginal births (along with some women who find breastfeeding very easy) can come across as feeling smug and superior, which is very unfair, imo.

People can say all they like that they don't mean to sound smug and superior, but to others who are already feeling vulnerable and sometimes inadequate, that is how it comes across.

"I did it the right way, I am great: therefore, by definition, you did it the wrong way and you are inadequate"

is the implication .

Some topics seem to be unnecessarily divisive, birth method, infant feeding, co-sleeping etc.

Reading threads about these things can be like taking part in a game of Chinese Whispers. Poster A writes about their experience, "I breastfed until baby was a year old" and Poster B reads that as a post that says "I am a better mum than you". There seems to be so much scope for judgements and bad feeling, which is a shame when we are all just making the best of our own circumstances.