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 think that there is difference between being proud of yourself and boasting. If she is proud then great, maybe she imagined that she wouldn't cope so well, find it harder, be more demanding of midwife etc. Is that really so hard to understand? I am sure that going into childbirth she, like all mothers really thought about it for many hours and worried about it, she is probably elated that it went better than her worst fears.

Facebook isn't general public, you are updating people who in theory know and like you as they have you as a Facebook friend, isn't this just another form of communication? If you don't like this person then why have you added her as a friend on Facebook? Surely it's joyous news that she had a healthy baby with no complications?

Why is that "boastful" ? If she had haf forceps and posted - "tough birth, had to have forceps but I got through - proud of me" I doubt you'd have been so arsey about it - she has just posted how HER birth was and she can be proud - like any new mum can.

I think anyone who objects so strongly to someone stating their birth experience and being happy as to how it went probably has a big chip on their shoulder!

Is it really considered 'normal' these days to be Facebooking just after you give birth .

That would be the most irritating thing of all to me - but then I wouldn't be looking at FB myself

spider If you said to me 'I am so glad that I was able to have my children at home with no pain relief needed' I would say 'I am so happy for you that you found childbirth a positive experience'. I would be jealous but I would totally accept that this was none of your problem, but mine.

If you said to me 'I am so proud that I was woman enough to give birth at home with no intervention' I would say 'are you nuts?' and probably never speak to you again.

It is okay to be happy with your childbirth experience. It isn't okay to take personal credit for it.

Childbirth is 95% random luck and 5% preparation at a maximum.

I think saying you are "proud" under these circumstances probably comes across as if you think you e done it through sheer determination rather than it just being due to a set if circumstances such as personal pain thresholds, length of time, position if baby etc. my 3rd ds was pretty much pain free and very quick thus I needed nothing, my first hurt like hell so I had the works.
I wasn't proud when I had ds3 because I knew I'd had no pain relief due to not needing it rather than anything I'd done.
If that makes sense.

I was proud of myself for being able to give birth naturally without any pain relief. Esp with some long standing health problems I had been told I would always have to have a c section. So there. Proud, relieved, glad, grateful and everything else that goes with having a new baby.

led it certainly does make sense...

I always wonder what happens to the 'I am so proud of myself for having a relatively painless quick birth' people when there second child is bigger, transverse etc.

'I am so very very proud that the whole in the middle of my pelvis is bigger than yours!'

'I am so proud that my baby had half the birth weight of yours!'

'I am so proud that my genetic code makes me ten times less sensitive to pain than you!'

'I am so proud that my baby got faced the optimum way for my pelvic shape and your didn't.'

I mean seriously do you actually think any of these things are something to feel proud of?

Glad, happy, relieved...sure....NOT proud.

"Not needing pain relief isn't a sign of strength or superiority, it's just luck. Nothing to be proud of. "

^^^THIS!

Icebeing why turn it into something so combative? It's not black and white. Because I'm proud of myself for giving my drug-free labours it doesn't mean others must be ashamed with their druggy ones.
That's like saying because you're pleased with yourself for an excellent choice in new curtains, I should be thoroughly ashamed of mine which I'm not particularly enthused about.

Why can't women be proud of things without others wanting to bring them down? Every person out there is fighting some kind of battle or is dealing with some kind of pain.

OP Would it make a difference if the woman who 'boasted' about her natural birth also happened to be grieving a lost mother, controlling addiction, suffering from depression intermittently? Would that allow her this moment of pride in your book?

Also the nicer you are the people, the happier you will feel.

Thurlow you shoot yourself in the foot with this comment: "Women who didn't have pain-relief and feel they fought hard to manage a birth without it seem to feel criticised for bragging about their experience."

Are they bragging? Or are they just writing about their experiences like everyone else?

Icebeing, maybe those things aren't the case though. Many tiny people with big babies, who cry when they stub their toes, have natural births with no pain relief. It is hard work, why shouldn't they feel proud?

As do you Icebeing with this: "Do we celebrate the people who cause themselves pain unnecessarily just to prove they can take it? Or do we sort of assume they are nuts?"

I'm not nuts and nor to I 'cause myself pain unnecessarily and I'm certainly not asking for you to celebrate me.

I chose to have a birth where I felt everything, felt fully in control and able to respond to what my body was telling me.

I don't see pain as equally bad and lack of pain as equaling good. I see pain, including headaches and tummy aches etc, as messages from my body to act upon.

However I would never consider having a tooth out without pain relief!

I suspect too that if you read 'god I managed a natural birth - I'm so proud' and it is written by someone you know and like, you don't dissect it.

When you go on the Facebook page of someone you admit you don't like, find smug and competetive, a possibly narcissist, strange and a dramaholic you are likely to see competition in 'god it's raining really hard here'.

If I can't stand people I don't look at their postings and I accept that's would be biased about them if I did.

If I really wanted to brag I'd have told you how DS4 was a ten pounder.

DOH!

No, Spidermama, I meant being criticised for bragging as in being accused by people of bragging (I KNEW I should have put that bragging in quote marks!)

The difficulty is you can't compare labours and so no one knows how anyone else felt. All you can do is think about your own labour.

The reasons why a woman might choose pain relief are just so complicated that it's difficult to talk about it all calmly, and probably most of those reasons are actually out of the woman's control - length of labour, position of baby etc.

Completely insensitive, I hate boasts like this

I realise that I am being totally unreasonable but when people comment on getting their 4th out easily I mostly think 'yeah big surprise...I imagine the hard part was keeping them up there that long.'

It is the only thing that makes me think a second might not be the same disaster the first was...surely there is more space and flexibility the second time around....

I think when women say stuff like this about their birth they mean 'I never thought I could do it without loads of pain relief but I found I could and that blows my mind. I am much stronger than I thought'. Having a baby can be a hugely empowering feeling and she is on a natural high. She is not mulling over all the different ways her feelings could be interpreted by others.

It is really common, in my job, for me to meet a groups of women with newborns and also common for me to hear story after story of intervention and disappointment in the birth and then when I ask 'did no one have a good experience' for a voice to pipe up with 'yes me but I am not allowed to talk about it'. All to hoots of laughter but it is not funny at all. If more women with good birth experiences felt free to talk about what made them good (and part of that will be good luck) then we would not have such fear surrounding childbirth.

As I said earlier having had five dc I can draw comparisons.
I had no preconceptions and with dc1 he was back to back, huge and it was my first so I was in so much agony that I'd have died rather than carry on, it was excruitiating.
With ds3 it was easy and practically painless by comparison.
The difference between births and either having or not having pain relief was nothing to do with me being brave or strong or determined so whilst I was chuffed with my easy birth and told anyone who would listen , I'd say that proud was not an emotion I felt, relieved more like.

ice I hate to break it to you but my 4th. And 5th were the hardest and resulted in sections!

Ooh I love mad boasters they are hilarious. Dh knew a dreadful woman like this when she had her baby we eagerly anticipated what she would say. She didn't disappoint - her birth was apparently "the worst addenbrokes had ever seen" sorry but we did snigger on the way home she always had to be the best/worst/most dramatic.

Ice, you sound like you do have your own issues about this if you can't accept that some women feel proud of themselves for resisting pain relief. If it makes you feel better, then you can believe that people who gave birth without pain relief weren't in that much pain, or they just happen to have had babies facing the right way, or they just happen to have bigger pelvises (although what that has to do with the strength of contractions or how much you suffer when your Fanjo tears I don't know).

Giving birth is a bit like a near death experience, I was totally amazed to be alive at the end of it. I was so chuffed to be alive and I expect your friend is likewise, particularly as (probably) by the time she decided she really did want an epidural after all, there wasn't time!