Competative childbirth

[FrameyMcFrame]

All my births have been horrendous, back to back and lots of things went wrong. I won't bore you with the details and it's all a long time ago now. I'm over it now, apart from the permanent physical damage that was a side effect. :(
Friend has just had her 1st baby and it all went perfectly and according to plan, all great and I'm so happy for her.

Apart from she has been keen to tell me that if I had done X,Y and Z then I also could have had a perfect birth too. I don't think it's as easy as that, everyone is different and each birth is different. Just because all that worked for her doesn't mean it would have helped at all in my circumstances...

I'm glad she had a good birth but I don't want to feel like my traumatic births were my fault because I didn't do my homework or watch the right DVDs...
Birth is only the start of parenthood, it's not that important, why do some people want to make such a big deal of it?

Am I being a jealous cow? AIBU to feel sad about this?

BinksToEnlightenment Mon 04-Mar-13 23:53:28
She's an idiot. I had an 'easy' birth. As in it was quick. It was also so incredibly painful during the contractions that I wanted to throw myself off the hospital roof. And during crowning I screamed like someone was kicking a boiling hot kettle between my legs, because that's what it felt like

That's how I feel too.

My birth was 'easy', apparently. Seven hour labour, gas and air, mobile and in the pool. However I was in so much pain and my contractions were so intense and barely any gap inbetween that I don't remember much. I was in my own world and H has to try and fill in the gaps for me. It was so frigging painful I told everyone I was never doing it again.

I also haemorrhaged after birth as my placenta got stuck. Next time I'm having an epidural.

Widow I hope you gave them a death stare

How fucking rude

people talk a load of toss about stuff they know nothing about.

i have had 2 difficult births, one life threatening for me and baby. FWIW, 5 years on the latter experience grounded me and makes me grateful every single day for the skill and general brilliance of the NHS. i have also had one where baby born after a 6 hour labour with no pain relief (i wanted it- they were too busy)

unfortunately this continues throughout life. middle child is now the teen from hell- apparently its because i dont talk to her enough/punish her enough/ am too lenient/too strict.

I agree with Illustrationaddict and have never got my head around the birth plan idea. It is completely new experience that you can't imagine in advance and yet people write down what they want- how on earth do they know?
It can lead to intense disappointment. Much better to be friendly with the staff and go with the flow- I don't know how they get on with the job when they have to wade through pages of instructions.
Mine were quick, easy and very friendly without a sentence of a birth plan. I was told that I had a high pain threshold which I think is rubbish- far more likely that I didn't have much pain! It was my sheer good luck - and the fact I have wide hips- nothing more and certainly not anything that I did or didn't do.

YANBU. She's being very insensitive. And extremely ignorant, if she thinks that doing X,Y and Z guarantees a perfect birth.

There's so many variables involved, and there's often very little that a woman can do to change things. IMO, an awful lot is down to chance. It's not anyone's fault if they have a traumatic birth - equally, I think it's ridiculous for someone to claim that they had an easy birth just because they did X, Y and Z!

Hmmm.

Either birth is important or it's not.

If it's not then it makes no sense to dwell on a terrible experience.

If it is important then it makes sense to think about it in advance and consider whether there's anything you can do to maximise the chance it being a reasonable experience.

And of course some of it does come down to luck. The presentation of the baby, your own health, accidental mishaps with cord. But not all of it. Being psychologically prepared for a range of outcomes, choosing a birth environment where you're most likely to get the best care, doing some physical preparation and learning some self-help strategies. These things do make a massive difference for some people.

As far as the friend goes - she is tactless, so YANBU.

Would add - an easy birth doesn't have to be a 'good' birth.

A 'difficult' birth isn't necessarily a 'bad' or 'traumatic' birth. I've had three challenging labours, and never once experienced an uncomplicated delivery. I still think the preparation I did for the births (which mainly consisted of organising the sort of care I preferred and NOT just 'going with the flow') made a difference to how I felt about them afterwards.

When I say 'go with the flow' - I did of course go to classes, read about it and prepare! I don't however treat it like a wedding with minute instructions about who could be in the room etc .

If you have a very detailed birth plan and expectations of how it will be it is lovely if it pans out- but very upsetting if it doesn't.

It took me 13 years to conceive DS, nearly miscarried him twice and was discovered to have numerous enormous fibroids - one blocking my cervix.

I had a ELCS under spinal. My entire uterine wall was invaded with fibroids and when cut I haemorrhaged. I saw blood splatter, heard the controlled panic in the room, saw the fear in DH's face. My blood pressure crashed, causing me to retch uncontrollably, huge needles were rammed into the backs of my hands and I was given a GA ASAP.

I came round two hours later to discovered I'd had an emergancy hysterectomy and a 4-5 unit blood transfusion.

DS was fine and dandy thankfully.

Shortly afterwards I was talking to a friend's husband about my experience. He is a Royal Marine, who has witnessed some horrendous things. He looked at me in awe and said, "You women are as hard as nails, you go through fear and pain most men would do anything to avoid and then you get up and get on with looking after your babies. You are all bloody marvellous." He made me feel proud of my "failed" birth. Whenever I have met people who have made me feel bad about what happened - the smug perfect birth brigade - I think about his words and feel strong and empowered again.

In birth, as in all things in life, we are dealt different hands and can only do so much to influence the outcome. All we can do is play the game as well as we are able.

I had what were on the face of it 3 textbook births. None of them lasted more than 5 hours and never had stitches. That was the face of it. The reality is that I went into shock more than once (possibly because of the speed) and ended up on oxygen with my middle child. My MIL made a huge deal out of it saying to her friend when we visited " oh Flobba makes it look easy, she shells them like peas, just like I did".
I just sat there for a minute and when it went quiet said "yes but I still feel like I could house a small family in my fanny MIL". DH choked on his drink...
Your OP is the reason I never ever talk about my birth experience unless I am directly asked..

I've had a home waterbirth, a natural dry land hospital birth and a back to back birth. I think when your baby is back to back it doesn't matter if you've done yoga or hypnobirthing as the pain is all you can think about. Thankfully my labour was short (90 mins) as I don't think I could have taken much more of that. OP, I think you're amazing for doing that 3 times, and probably for a lot longer than I did as well.

YANBU

I had planned a lovely home water birth but what I got was a very medicalised hospital birth ending in theatre with forceps.

I did hypnobirthing and IMHO it helped me to cope with what was happening, but no amount of breathing or visualisation could change the fact that dd was at the wrong angle and got completely stuck. that's where medical intervention stepped in and saved our lives and for that I am grateful.

in a strange kind of way I still found the experience positive - because I had exactly the kind of birth I really didn't want, but I still got through it, iyswim?.

exoticfruits
If you have a very detailed birth plan and expectations of how it will be it is lovely if it pans out- but very upsetting if it doesn't.

This is why I had a very basic birth plan that really boiled down to "explain things to me properly and I'll go with the flow".

I refused to build up my expectations regarding birth and just concentrated on getting through it.

There was one recently on here where the woman had put that her partner didn't want to cut the cord- she wrote it down and then got upset because he wasn't asked!!

I remember when I had my DS the woman in the bed opposite had come into hospital to be induced 15 hours after DS was born. I remember her hooked up to machines and things and she didn't look happy at all. I remember how shit it was being induced with dd.

Anyway, after she'd given birth (the next day, so she laboured for a bloody long time) she came back to my ward room and sat there showing off to her friends and family about how she had a natural birth and the midwife was crying at how the baby just pushed itself out of the birth canal with no pushing . Apparently it was the most beautiful birth the midwife had ever seen. From eavesdropping, I know she had tore her perenium and was in pain.

It just proves that some people gloss things over so much for others.

I think there are too many women who are fooling themselves into thinking that they can prepare a beautiful birth plan and have a magical experience. It's possible that they are not being given enough information on what can go wrong (and yes, you do need to be aware of potential problems), or more likely, they are kidding themselves that it can't possibly happen to them!

So they build their expectations up and when reality crashes in they can't handle it.

How best to deal with this I can't say. But I have seen this in mums who were expecting at a similar time to me.

lose her. Some women are too stupid and too boring to bother with.

yes a friend had 2 'textbook' birth - 5 hrs, no pain relief, no tears or stitches.

but when I asked her about the birth when visiting her and her newborn DC2 she stated she would never go through that again.

Even 'easy' births aren't always easy

Of course it makes sense to 'go with the flow' of your labour, but doesn't it also make sense that those people who look after you know something about what's important to you? That's what a birth plan is for. It's not a plan, because you can't plan your labour. It's a way of telling the person who's looking after you, who may have taken over your care at a time when you are completely unable to communicate with them, how you would like your birth to be. It's good they know that.

And doesn't it also make sense, if you have a choice of where you have your baby, to do a bit of research into standards of care at the hospitals or birth centers you're able to choose from? For example how many women get one to one care? And how many women have straightforward births? How many women get the pain relief they wanted?

There are big variations in these things between hospitals serving the same populations in some cities.

Personally I was pretty controlling about my second and third births, after feeling utterly out of control for my first, which went on forever, and involved about 5 5000 midwives. Second and third time I decided I was going to choose who looked after me and not take pot luck and risk getting nurse Ratchett again. Having your choice of midwife and your choice of setting for the birth can go quite a long way to optimising your chance of a good birth, so IMO it's worth giving a bit of attention to.

"It just proves that some people gloss things over so much for others."

Or that she had indeed had a birth she felt was absolutely amazing, and wasn't 'glossing over' her perineal damage, so much as not fixating on it because she didn't think it was a massive problem.

I had a shit birth the first time (back to back baby, two failed ventouse, forceps, episiotomy, baby rushed to NICU, massive PPH, blood tranfusion, didn't see baby for 24 hours, episiotomy broke down and got a massive infection and left with continence).

I had a shit birth the second time round (induced after 10 days overdue, made to push for two hours as was told fully dilated but wasn't, three failed attempts to put epidural in, emergency section as baby did not descend, massive PPH, blood transfusion 24 hours after being sent home and needed a blood patch after the epidural pierced the durum of my spine).

I am obviously a lazy bitch

Or my pelvis is an abnormal shape due to childhood trauma - I tell people that and they promptly shut the fuck up.

Also would you base your whole marriage on your wedding day?

No, so you wouldn't judge your parenting on birth.

I had three quick and easy births. My mum, her sister, their mum... all quick and easy. Runs in the family and is good luck, nothing more. Of course YANBU. Your friend is a mite ignorant.

Smile amd say something along the lines of "everyone is different and to suggest that I did something wrong is a bit insulting so let's change the subject, let's have a cup of tea/vat of wine and tell me how little one is getting on". The invite to tell you about baby will hopefully shut her up and you should be confident that you did nothing wrong, your medical team will confirm that to you.

YANBU. A friend of mine had her judgey pants on for years over my two EMCS. She just had her first at 44 after years of trying to get PG. Her meticulously planned water birth turned into an EMCS. I am glad her and baby are both well, but I couldn't help a little .