Does anyone else feel guilty for having 'good births' ?

[Disenchanted3]

Strange I know! But I have had 3 pregnancies, 3 children.

Each birth was pretty much textbook.

1st - induction, 6 hour labour, water labour, small tear, no pain relief, home next day. Healthy baby.

2 - homebirth, in water, 5.5 hours, healthy baby.

3- Homebirth, longer latent stage, but 3 hour established labour, healthy baby.

My SIL has just had her 2nd son, her 2nd crash c-section, both times her babies have been ill for a while after.

My sister had a heamorrage and her son had an infection and had to stay in hospital on anti-bs for a week,

My aunts 2nd childhad to stay in for a wekk, complications etc...

I thank the Lord regularly for my healthy babies, and i KNOW how lucky I am, but sometimes I just feel awful that Ive been so lucky.

All SIL wanted was a vaginal birth and healthy baby.

I have had one good birth and hope to have naoter one sometime in the future.
I don't feel guilty about it. I feel grateful and lucky certainly, but not guilty.
It is down to luck and I was lucky that way, while others might enjoy good luck in that they managed bfing without much pain or didn't have severe back problems or didn't have dreadful morning sickness, etc, etc.

It is a lottery.
No one should be smug about a good birth, but please don't feel guilty either.

I had a good birth and was an em-cs, I don't necessarily think that good birth = vaginal delivery.

I don't understand women who feel they have "failed" because they had to have a c-section.

No, I had 4 good births and dont feel guilty. But have not had anyone close to me going through hell.
Its jsut the luck of the draw, I have had very bad luck in other ways.

i had three very straight forward, very short births without any physical problems
I dont feel at all guilty - but do feel very lucky
but then I had pretty awful pregnancies and pretty awful sleeps

although my post on the no urge to push thread might suggest otherwise my labour and delivery was pretty straight forward.

i did feel as if i had nothing to talk about at the baby groups tbh...there wsa a lot of i had xxxxx stitches, 3 weeks of pushing etc etc

I had fab water birth experiences, there are plenty of others who also had excellent experiences on the home birth websites.

My sister said her hospital births were akin to torture and I cried because I didn't want that.

I found the homebirth sites inspirational which is why I went down that route. I wanted minimal pain and to have a lovely birth and to be able to breastfeed successfully.

Of course labour is fhardwork but is a good birth down to luck or just being positive? Or a bit of both? What if the staff are too busy and make a potentially good birth bad?

All women should have positive experiences because pregnant women are sacred and should be treated as such. At the end of the day, a healthy baby no matter what the birth was like, is what matters.

It's just terrible how a bad birth can interfere with the bonding etc. My sister had to receive post traumatic stress counselling to deal with her awful c section experience.

I really don't understand why you need to feel "guilty" about birth at all, no matter how it happens. I had emCS, and was just glad dd and I were both fine. I didn't think I had failed in some way because I didn't have a natural birth. I WAS upset because i wasn't awake to see dd arrive in the world. But I think that it is entirely reasonable, especially as I don't plan any more.

"is a good birth down to luck or just being positive?"

Being positive must help with your perception of pain etc but there are many things that can go wrong in a birth and it is naive to think they didn't happen to you because you kept a smile on your face.

I think a good birth depends on a variety of things being positive a good midwife but alot too do with luck. But I think being positive and not scared going into labor room does help but again that can only go so far if your baby goes into distress or many other problems there is nothing anyone can do really its just bad luck.

I had positive expectations of both my births and they both went horribly wrong. It's all down to how your body's made and how it responds to childbirth and you won't know that until it happens.

Nope. Not in the slightest. Anyone feel guilty for doing well at school, or being well off, or for having a good marriage? No? Well exactly. Partly planning, partly luck.

No. I feel grateful - I know it was partly down to luck and partly down to the fabulous MWs who prepared me at antenatal classes and appointments, and accompanied me at the hospital.

I'm one of the lucky ones too. 3 pregnancies, 3 births, 2 homebirths and 1 hospital birth - all babies healthy, not one stitch, very quick recovery.

I sometimes think that I shouldn't try for another baby as I've been so lucky in the past that the next time something might go wrong. Silly I know.

don't spoil it by feeling guilty. and keep talking about it, women need to hear more positive birth stories otherwise all they hear is the horrors and of course they do happen but there's lots of "nice" birthing around. it helps to go into labour knowing it can be easy and straightforward, even if it doesn't turn out to be like that.

i have had two babies, the first was long and painful with a complicated tear, the second a blissful almost painfree waterbirth. i treasure both births as the most unbelievable moments of my life. i feel incredibly lucky and blessed to have had two "easy" births (even the first, which was not really that easy, and needed a repair op...). 3 and a half years on, i still haven't had a full night's sleep, but that's another story

I don't feel one bit guilty. I had a pretty unpleasant pregnancy and problematic newborn, the birth was the one redeeming feature of the whole year!

Oh dear Kidowner.

What a wilfully fingers in ears and la di da di da post that was.

I just wanted to add that I don't really like it when people are rude about women talking a lot about what horrendous births they had.

If it helps someone to talk about it then why resent that?

The care i had was fantastic, a MW plus a student MW. They were telling me to get up and move about and wheel my syntocin drip with me. I can't fault them at all. And i was positive and not all scared. I did my whole induced labour on G&A. Shame my body didn't want to play along.

I had 3 easy births and just feel grateful. I was lucky-it was nothing I did.

Yes you can sound incredibly nauseatingly smug if you've had good birth experiences that's why you'd only confess to them on an anonymous site such as this.

Sorry for being nauseating and la di la. I feel guilty now.

I know what you mean, in general I just don't talk about my births.

ds1 seemed horrendous at the time, until I started talking to other new mothers and realised that my 2 hours 1st labour, with no tearing or grazing, had been a walk in the park.

I talked about ds2's more - because it was exceptionally quick, and unattended - which makes it more of a talking point.

I don't feel quilty, but I don't (in RL) say much about them.

don't feel guilty kidowner feel good you have probably helped many first timers feel less scared and anxious about their upcoming labor and I agree it is hard to post a good birth experience(mine was). I had a really bad pregnancy though and thrombosis nearly claimed my life but I would never be angry at someone for having a good pregnancy or for being very happy about it I would be just as happy for them. It certainly wouldn't hurt my feelings.

I don't begrudge anyone for having had a good birth. It is great for you.

I am, however, quite incredibly angry at idiotic dimwittery a la "I read a book and it says childbirth doesn't hurt unless you are scared" or "My birth was great because I was positive".

Oh yes. I had preeclampsia and had to be induced because I wasn't "positive". And here I was thinking nobody knew the reasons for preeclampsia . Oh and my horrible back labour and excruciating pain must have been because I'm a scared wuss and had no courage, not because DD was back to back.

And the huge episiotomy that cut through a nerve and was promptly infected - well, I'm sure there was a simple and smuggish explanation for that as well that didn't involve her being a big baby and the MW being an incompetent twit.

I had 24 hr labor no medication with waters breaking first and contractions starting immediately after every 5 mins and already off the chart. After further 6hr to every 3 mins after further 6hr (total of 12 now) just constant stream. my ds was back to back I delivered him posterior with his hand and elbow in the way he scratched all down the inside of my fanjo but no terrible tear. And yet no interference and I consider it a good labor but i'm sure it would have been so much better had I not been positive and was scared shitless. I had also been in hospital for the week preceding owing to a collapsed ear tunnel unable to get more than 1 hrs sleep. I was told by doctor that I must have a very good pain threshold as most with this problem passed out from pain. I suppose the pain threshold had nothing to do with me doing well in labor . I was just lucky