AIBU to think my sister is being an idiot?

[Rainbowsandpotsofgold]

Ok so my darling sister (29) is pregnant with her 1st baby after trying for 2 years. Shes decided she wants an elective c section ...no medical reason...she does suffer with fibromyalgia but so do me and my mum (2 natural births each).

Shes made this decision based on
A) She's afraid of a long labour ( I was 15 having my eldest while living at home, was in slow labour for 5 days and 17hours active labour but my daughter was born stargazing which wasnt picked up until she was coming out)
B) She doesn't want to tear ( no idea where this fear has come from 🤷‍♀️)

My argument is that...

1. Recovery from surgery can take longer for fibro sufferers
2. Anaesthetic/ epidurals don't work as well on us either
3. She lives 30 miles away from us, near her husband's family and knowing my sister, she will expect us ( our mum at least) to be there every day ( mum has fibro, ms and 2 Foster kids of school age plus my elderly grandparents who we both care for)
4. With all the uncertainty regarding covid, she will possibly be in hospital alone for a few days after the birth
5. After trying for so long I dont understand why she wouldn't at least want to try a natural birth?

She's a nightmare to try and talk to and once she's made a decision (even bad ones) she wont change her mind (typically baby of the family syndrome - brat)

Just to add...I will be showing her the replies as she is refusing to listen to me, my mum or my gran (who has had a natural birth and a c section...50 years ago but I dont think the basics have changed)

AIBU to think shes being an utter idiot in thinking a c section is the 'easiest' (her words) option?

@Takingontheworld

Couldn't even read your whole post. This is so SO not even anything remotely to do with you that its ridiculous. Calling any woman an idiot for exercising the right to birth how she chooses is vile.

Exactly.

if I want to call her an idiot for making a choice that may negatively impact her life...I will

You say you had your first at 15: do you think your choices are above criticism? Let your sister decide for herself.

@Rainbowsandpotsofgold

No bullying involved at all, we are just trying to get her to see both sides of the situation. Shes my baby sister and I'm sorry but I dont want to see her suffering through weeks of unnecessary recovery if she can have a natural birth

Natural birth isn't risk free! I have a friend who struggled in labour and had such a horrific birth that her son is now confined to a wheelchair and severely disabled. Leave your sister alone to make whatever choice she wishes!

I've got no idea what it would be like with Fibro but where does this idea come from that if you have a CS you will not be able to pick your baby up over night? I'm sure there are cases where problems occurred and people have struggled but this simply isn't true as standard. I've had two CS (one and emergency with a GA) and in both cases I was able to walk around normally after about 5 hours and pick the baby up before that.

You need to stop thinking of her as your ‘baby’ sister and respect that she is a fully grown adult with her own mind and right to choose and stop trying to control her actions.
If you are like this with her birth are you also going to criticise every action she takes with the baby when it comes?
If I were her I would be distancing myself from you!

I had three sections and one natural birth. I was able to pick my baby up ect and was in hospital only one night. The faster you get up and start moving the better if possible. Have you had a c section to compare too? It hurts to laugh or cough and get up and down the stairs but not agony. If she has a downstairs bathroom then she can take loads of clothes, wipes and nappies etc downstairs and only have to go up or down once a day. I think she has to make the choice herself and know that you'll support her anyway.

OP if I had been given a CS like I should have been if they hadn’t dropped the ball on communicating issues between MW and doctors then my child may have survived. It wasn’t the VB itself - since he had already passed in uterine - but the fetishisation of VB in the NHS and the fear mongering and refusal to consider an ELCS may have contributed to my loss.

Later with my second child I did have an ELCS, it went really smoothly, I recovered very quickly and have had no long lasting effects from it.

Birth is not a danger-free business. The risks in a VB are marginally higher for the child and risks in ELCS are marginally higher for the mother.

But for the love of god please stay out of her business and stop pressuring a pregnant woman.
Do you even know if she has any tokophobia, history of assault, all the details of her pregnancy etc to be able to offer an opinion? She is an adult and will have medical professionals helping her make decisions. Please just stay out of it.

@MomToTwoBabas

Yes she is being an idiot. Leave her to it though let her be in agony for ages after a c section not being able to pick up her own baby. She wont do it again.

What a load of fucking nonsense 🙄

Why are you dictating how she will give birth? Hope you won’t be overbearing with everything? Yes she is a first time mum and yes you’ve done it all and seen it all before but don’t take over. This is her pregnancy, her birth, her baby. If you were my sister I would tell you to back off and not discuss any further plans with you as you seem to be a know it all!

You're a massive arse. Glad you're not my sister.

You absolutely have to let this one go.

She is an ADULT WOMAN. She has TTC for two years - as someone who tried for four, it's certainly one way to get to know your own body and limits,if you didn't before. She's had plenty of time to think of all this.

It doesn't matter if you want to protect her or feel responsible for her. You're not. Because she is an adult woman. You do not get a say in her choices. Your opinion means diddly squat. Your birth experiences and that of your mother and grandmother are only relevant to your sister in so far as they happened to different women, different times, and different circumstances.

Some women have great csection experiences, some have horrific ones. Some have wonderful natural birth experiences, some awful. When it boils down to it birth is always a gamble. She could try and give birth naturally and end up with fourth degree tears and permanently incontinent, she could have a perfect section and bounce back in recovery, you simply do not know and it is absolutely not your place to judge or give forth.

Your sister is only 16 weeks pregnant and will presumably avail herself of plenty of resources to read around birth, she doesn't need second hand horror stories from big sis.

Her choices are none of your business. You have no say over her or what she does. Let this one go and accept the choices she makes as an adult woman and prospective mother.

It is up to her but a c section is so hard to recover from and she cant expect you all the drop everything to help

As so many other have said it’s her decision. It might be the bc wrong one. It might not. But it’s her decision.

She’s not your ‘baby‘ sister. She’s your fully grown adult sister entitled to make her own decision.

6 years after my first VB and I still have issues caused by tearing and a subsequent infection. That doesn’t mean CS would have been a better option. I made the decision at the time based on what I, and the medical staff around me, thought.

I think you’re coming from a place of wanting to care for your sister but you sound very controlling.

Your decision is how much you help her afterwards, whatever birth you have.

C sections are not natural.

Yeah, neither are ultrasound scans or heartbeat monitors or foreceps or epidurals or oxytocin injections or inductions or ventouse caps, or really any of the things we use to minimise the chances of mother or baby dying in childbirth - something which, 200 years ago, happened in 2.5% of all U.K. births (compared to 0.013% today).

‘Natural’ is not, and never has been, a synonym for ‘good’ when it comes to childbirth.

• she has

The way you wrote your post sounds like you think her fears and concerns are not valid. They very much are and I wish I'd have been stronger in requesting a csection in the first place. Hows about you support her

Also I had two elective C Sections, both went like a dream, both resulted in two healthy babies that I easily breastfed into toddlerhood. I wouldn't do anything differently now.

Both medical and laypeople really need to start to distinguish between emergency and elective sections. They are like night and day. A swift, perfect vaginal birth with whale music and zero complications will always trump a section, but quite frankly when it comes to long term damage to women's bodies, an elective section trumps many, many of the natural births I've heard of, which frankly sound like horror stories.

If I was your sister and had an illness like fibromyalgia, I would absolutely choose an elective for that reason alone. Recovery from the section may take a little longer and she may be a little sorer than usual (I didn't have a problem personally and neither did any of the women who have had electives that I know of) but in her shoes I would do all I could to avoid the sort of long term issues a natural birth could potentially cause on a body already struggling with a long term health condition.

My DSis and I are very close, and we discuss most aspects of each other's lives. But, although she's my younger sister by 2 years, I would never think of her as my 'baby sister'.

I was very concerned when she decided to have a second child. This was because she nearly died of pre-Enclampsia when she had her DD (now 11). She had an emergency C section at 32 weeks and she became very ill afterwards.

In the event, that didn't happen the second time. She did have gestational diabetes, which she'd also had the first time.

I was very worried, obviously, but I wouldn't have dreamt of telling her she shouldn't do it. Because at the end of the day, it was a decision that only concerned her and her DH. You seriously need to back off. I do believe you're acting out of concern but you really are crossing boundaries here.

OP — and I’m genuinely not intending to be unpleasant here — but it sounds to me as if you have clubbed together with your mother to bosom-hoik about the birth decision of a 29 year old adult in part because you had your first child at 15, and are (consciously or unconsciously) setting yourself up as birth authority to compensate for how you were young and clueless and in need of support.

Your sister isn’t 15, she’s 29, and her pregnancy was the result of long trying, not an accident. The fact that you consistently describe her as your baby sister, the baby of the family and a ‘brat’ suggests you’re trying to put her in your place when you were 15, and you’re trying to ‘mother’ her.

You mean well, but fundamentally she’s not a clueless 15 year old who got caught out. You can let her make her own medical decisions.

@Flaxmeadow

2) Having read up on fistulas and 4th degree anal tears and arrrghj! recently, it doesn't sound like a totally bad choice to me

But the pelvic floor muscles would probably recover better by a natural birth, especially if breastfeeding

The problem with an elective caesarean is that it is an unnatural process, hormones that heal the body are disrupted, and the mother might have difficulty breastfeeding, which again would disrupt the release of muscle recovery hormones

If there is a risk of injury to the mother or baby then yes obviously a caesarean is better, but to elect for one doesn't make any sense

Erm no.

Go look up the data on this.

Pelvic floor muscles can be damaged due to pregnancy rather than childbirth itself. However a VB is more likely to cause pelvic floor damage and long term problems. Incontinence after giving birth is much more common in women who have had a VB than a ELCS. Particularly anal incontinence. An ELCS does not protect women completely from it but it certainly has less risk.

As for breast feeding, a CS can delay milk coming it but this is less common with an ELCS than an EMCS and usually isnt a problem at all. This is because its the removal of the placenta that triggers milk production not the method of birth. Anesthesia can interfere with hormone production but this tends to be a problem with general anesthetic rather than local anesthetic - so this is more of an issue if you have a crash EMCS rather than a calm ELCS. A traumatic birth can also contribute to the problem, as it means you produce more adrenaline which inhibits the production of oxytocin which is the hormone which stimilates milk production.

Therefore a nice calm ELCS under local anesthetic isnt comparible yet we get these stupid meaningless statistics because ELCS are lumped together with EMCS.

Its infuriating reading posts like this one which spout incorrect utter nonsense. People really feel qualified to give their opinions not share factual correct information.

YY to what Ilen said. I’m wondering how much of this is the OP projecting her place in the pecking order as a pregnant 15 year old with presumably limited choices and heavy reliance on the older females of the family.
Your own birth experience as a 15 year doesn’t sound great - I wonder if all of those choices around birth options were completely out of your control and handed to your mother to make. You have a really unusual sense of ownership over your sister and her experience here. I can imagine bringing a newborn home as a 15 year old would interrupt the typical sister development anyway. Six years isn’t that much of an age gap. In my experience sisters with that level of age gap would see themselves as peers in adulthood ? Yet for some reason you’re pushing her into a box ‘marked -idiot , cant be trusted, terrible decision maker. I wonder how many of the older family members said things like this about you? Maybe your birth experiences made her very cautions.

Also. If you have a traumatic vb you can have a local anaesthetic and adrenaline release - so you aren't immune to a problem with milk production caused by these issues.

*cautious

Speaking as someone who has fibro and ME, my first birth was a VB and it was horrendous. The actual birth went wrong, baby was back to back, i got a 3rd degree tear, needed forceps and retained some of the placenta which made me ridiculously ill. I was poorly for a long time and hand on heart it affected my ability to bond with her at the beginning. I had an ES woth the second and it was the most amazing, calm experience. Up on my feet within 12 hours and home the next day. Pain was a bit strong for the first day or two but nothing painkillers didnt take away. If I have another it will be ES all the way. Yes, things can go wrong with either choice but ultimately its HER choice and you cannot try and her push her in either direction. Leave her be.