to feel horribly jealous of my friend's perfect birth?

[coveredinsnot]

Ok, this might be a complete over reaction, but it was a strong enough reaction to stop me eating my lunch and get out for a bracing walk... Anything that stops me eating is usually serious

My friend had her baby yesterday, a water birth at hospital with only gas and air. While I am honestly, truly over the moon for her, I can't help but feel horribly, heartachingly, disgustingly jealous. I had longed for such a birth throughout my pregnancy, but ended up with a very traumatic experience in which neither my midwife nor partner really spoke to me for the majority of my labour, baby was posterior so labour was very painful and slow, I couldn't have an epidural and ended up having an emergency caesarean after over 20 hours of hard labour. After baby was born I didn't hold him for over 2 hours. It was horrible. I was drugged up for days afterwards and can't remember much about those early special days. I feel angry about my experience, but I'm even more angry that it's interfering with my ability to just feel complete happiness that a good friend hasn't had to go through such a trauma.

Is there something wrong with me, am I a cruel hearted bitch, or is this normal?

Yes Tinsel I really do feel like my view of my own birth and my friend's positive birth experience have changed. I think the things that have helped the most the wonderful advice on this thread and reading about others' experiences, and also time. Time always helps. It's been a couple of weeks I think since she had her baby, and now I mostly just feel pleased for her. I think I can separate our experiences a little more, whereas initially they felt tangled together. I'm still not quite sure why I reacted so strongly to her positive birth experience, perhaps it's simply because she's one of my closest friends, and not many of my close friends have had babies yet! I don't know. Whatever it is, it has been very interesting to say the least. There have been lots of useful things to have come out of the horrible reaction I had to her birth announcement. Perhaps next time I can be a little more prepared for the birth announcement of a good friend!

Tinsel, I can't believe you're having to type with one finger!! Are you still in hospital? How are things? I feel like I only know little bits of what's happening to you and also your previous birth experiences, have you talked about all your experiences in more detail elsewhere on mumsnet?