To not understand why you'd boast about a natural childbirth?

[HolaGuapo]

A colleague of mine had a baby girl this morning.
Long backstory with the colleague but to cut it short - she's very strange, everything is always about her (constantly) and how much money etc she has and a couple of people at work have said things along the lines of she's a bit of a narcissist. Her life seems to be one constant, long drama (she's bragged about the fact that she tricked her ex into getting her pregnant and then at 30 weeks was engaged to a guy she'd known 2 weeks and he is apparently taking the baby on as his own) and she lies about a lot of things.

So I went on Facebook, saw she'd posted 'DD born this morning, weighs x' etc. at the end of the status she put 'no pain relief used except a tiny bit of gas and air. So proud of myself'. I commented congratulations, and she replied saying 'thanks, I'm so amazed, I can't believe i did it with only a small amount of gas and air, so proud of myself for not needing anything else'. Scrolling up I saw everyone who had congratulated had also had this kind of reply.
I'm 22 weeks pregnant with my first and I have a low pain threshold so know I will need some sort of pain relief. However, even if I didn't, I wouldn't be boasting about how much (or how little) pain relief I'd used!
AIBU to just not understand why you'd boast about this?

I've had sections and not good outcomes to other pregnancies. I don't have any problem with people who are pleased and joyful over their birth experiences. I look back with joy, affection and humour on my own. I've been genuinely happy and interested in friends who've had home births, drug free, or whatever. I've had conversations with a couple of people who've been ecstatic after the birth. It's all good and my default position would be to say yabu.

Sounds like the problem isn't to do specifically with her having a nice birth but her overall attention seeking dramas. Don't get emotionally involved for this reason.

Oh bollocks to her, good for her. to me all I really remember is my Dh slapping wet paper towels on my head and water just dripping down my face when having my ds and almost puking on the gas and air. Then with my dd I was so knackered I was confused as to whether she was a girl or boy!! I remember when I was a teenager and asked an 18yr old friend at the time what it was like having her dd and she said that it was like having the biggest s**t of her life! I didn't know what to say!! Did your friend/work colleague have whale music as well?

I don't see the problem, really. someone might finish a marathon and say that they are really proud of themselves to have managed without even getting a stitch, and they'd be quite right to be prooud of themselves. Someone else might have run the same marathon, and had a totally different experience and say that they are incredibly proud for having managed their goal time despite pain and injury. Another runner might post that they are proud to have completed the marathon, despite having to have walked the final half due to injuries. Another might say that they had to pull out of the race but that it was an amazing experience.

And you know what? They'd all have every reason to be proud of themselves for what they've done. And so has your colleague. She created a new life and laboured hard to bring that life about. Just as the new mother who has an elective section does. She made a baby, for fuck's sake. If you stop and think about it, that's pretty amazing. She's not likely to do it all that often in her life, so let her be proud of it for a while without sniping.

Agree with thewhitequeen

& competitive birth is bullshit. All women are to be celebrated for bringing lives into this world and I cant see whats so admirable about intimating that youve done it better, as if youre above other women. If I boasted like that Id expect my good friends to bring me back down to earth. Not that I would. We all have different pain thresholds, etc - so what if a woman does it drug free, are there medals being given out these days?
Just because its boasting about childbirth, doesnt make it different from any other boasting it seems to me. We all have our achievements in our own right, we dont have to compete with others to make that point, especially when its in no way a competition. Since the dawn of time billions of women give birth all over the world, day in, day out. Each is special in their own way. Its no big deal.

It's all about the delivery (pun intended).

"I'm so pleased that I was able to have the birth I chose for myself"
vs
"My body did what nature intended it to do"

The second has the unspoken "which means that everyone who didn't have a natural birth is defective". To use the earlier marathon example, you can be extremely proud of having worked hard and achieved your goal, but you don't then go up to someone with a disability and say "I'm so glad my body worked the way it was supposed to".

Oh Good God. It's a very British peculiarity that reads a woman saying, "Yay! I'm so happy. Just gave birth for the first time with no pain relief! So proud!" as, ""Fuck you, you lazy bitches! Eat my breast milk!!"

What's wrong with being proud of yourself? Be it, owning an empire, holding down 1,2,3,4 jobs, running a family....it's all stuff we SHOULD be proud of!! Go all of us!!

"I'm so pleased that I was able to have the birth I chose for myself"
vs
"My body did what nature intended it to do"

I don't think it's much of a problem that someone is pleased their body did what it was supposed to do.
IMO it implies it might not have and anyone should be grateful for that.

Actually putting the choice in there would make it more that we can choose what happens.

A friend of mine was actually happy that her body didn't do what nature (well, induction) intended, and had to have a C section.

To the OP, you don't know how much pain relief you will need.
I was prepared for it all, wanted an epidural and ended up with gas and air, back massage and a shot of pethidine to cope with the first stages.

She may well have thought the same, that she had a low threshold and is feeling really pleased that she coped without.
Plus she had had the baby that morning. Let her be proud of whatever she wants and don't take it personally.

Every now and then I am tempted to 'brag' that both my fanjo and breasts remain in a pristine, pre-baby state

Wow, didn't they grow during pregnancy?

She has given birth. She has done marvellously. Please don't shit on her parade. She'll come down from her post-birth high all to soon, and when the baby blues, engorged breasts, cracked nipples, torturous fatigue, piles, incontinence and all the other horrors of new motherhood begin, I hope she has real friends to turn to.

I had a hard labour without pain relief (not through choice; the early stages of the labour progressed too quickly for an epidural, and I reated badly to the gas), followed by an emergency c-section when it all went tits up. It wouldn't occur to me in a million years to feel "got at" by the natural elation of a new mother. It just wouldn't.

She is alive, her baby is alive. Rejoice.

all too soon, fuck it.

Hmmm, in our office we've just had lots of babies.

First deliver by elective cs
Mine delivered with induction, epidural before induction commenced, gas nod air and shit loads of the f word (and I mean lots)
One delivered on a whiff of gas and air
One totally planned natural birth stretching over 72 hours with escalating interventions until emergency cs

Literally all babies born within 9 weeks of each other. Everyone is the offices only concern was is mum and baby ok? And in case of last birth a few more details due to worry over requiring an emergent section. I don't give a shiny shite what people think about me having an epidural before the drip came anywhere near me (waters had broken 24 hours before and labour was slow to start) I know I have the pain threshold of well nothing, so it wasn't even an issue for me, but equally pleased for mum no 3 who had nothing.

Slightly weird to put so much detail on FB (odd) but of course she is entitled to be proud of herself. Like others have said, the hormone crash will come soon enough!

However I disagree with posters above who say it is 'luck' not to require more pain relief than g&a - I don't get that. If a woman decides not to have an epidural / other pain relief for whatever reason and sticks to that (for whatever reason) throughout labour then I think that is commendable not lucky. She is probably proud that she had an idea of how she wanted her birth to be and stuck to her guns when it got hard in order to make that a reality. That is no reflection on people who chose an epi / elcs or ended up with an emcs or complications outside their control, it just is what it is and I wouldn't read more into it than that.

Of course luck is a matter of perspective.

My friend felt lucky that she had to have a CS.

I felt lucky that I was able to feel the contractions and be in some control during the delivery. But less lucky that there was no time for the epidural (even though I had been in hospital for 10 hours and it did hurt like hell at times).

She had a baby this morning? Jeez, cut her some slack then. Everyone is allowed a boast a few little hours after producing a whole new person no matter how they did it. Unfriend her if she winds you up so much.

I do think some people have trouble differentiating between boasting and someone being proud of themselves. One is you are all inferior The other is I feel great.

There are so many things we're not allowed to be visibly proud of it's ridiculous.