Childbirth experience - Guardian

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

I thought this was a really good piece -pregnancy and child birth is, for me, what finally brought me to terms with my body as for the first time in my life I was proud of my body as it had done this incredible thing, and I didn't really care about the changes. It totally stripped away everything, except for me, pure animal, growing a new body inside of mine, pushing it out, and then feeding it literally me. Whenever I think about the whole process I just feel awe at the impossibility of it all, yet somehow it all comes together to create a life.

But remember this: any labour that results in a healthy mother and a healthy baby is a good labour. Any woman who goes through any form of childbirth is a hero. The blood, the courage, the self-sacrifice, the stamina, the body-shuddering pressure, the fear, the gore: no wonder men had to invent war to soothe their phenomenal sense of inadequacy. Childbirth is an act of bravery, strength and endurance no man will ever know.
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Childbirth feels like everything to everyone. Wolves gnawing at your entrails, blue medical hairnets, a thundering ocean, white noise, sandwiches in plastic packets, teeth-chattering nerves, the ripping apart of your pelvis like tectonic plates, the click and drip of machinery, lightning down your spine, the pale blank hum of a hospital light, the onion sweat of animals, panic, darkness, exhaustion, a mist that becomes hail, leaving your body, believing in your body, a beleaguered body, a body pulled from your body.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/18/what-does-childbirth-feel-like-google

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/18/what-does-childbirth-feel-like-google

Love this article and your reflections on it OP.

I have found pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood the hardest, most profound and amazing experiences of my life. I have felt utterly transformed in a different way by each.

Before these experiences I had never reflected on myself as a woman. I would have only seen the aspects that made me human.

Afterwards, I realised that whatever I had viewed myself as before, there it was, my reality as a host and giver of life as all of the hardship, pain and joy that comes from that.

I absolutely agree op. Before I got pregnant I was such a hypochondriac and also very self-absorbed. Going through the birth blew me away as it made me so aware of how strong and amazing my body was. I never felt the same again.

I know we're not supposed to say things like this but I felt so incredibly proud of how strong and amazing my body was to create an entire new human being within me which then grew and which I gave birth to. It really centred me and completed me.

The first three months with my newborn baby breastfeeding him and watching him grow I have to say were the most intense of my entire life. I had no interest in anything else around me. I didn't even watch television. Obviously this wore off eventually and he is now an incredibly normal 16 year old playing on his computer upstairs at the moment however I have to say that the birth of my children completed me in a way I never expected.

Totally agree. Not just childbirth but being a mother changes you.

So wonder we react so strongly at the thought of young (nonconforming(?), tomboy (?) , lesbian (?)) girls like us having their breasts chopped off. When those breasts have been the centre of our first months nurturing a newborn. It cuts to our hearts.

We are women ffs not stiletto clad bepenised wannabees who seem more interested in makeup than babies.

What makes a woman? Exactly...

Oh well

I like loads of that article. I don't like 'any labour that ends on a healthy baby and healthy mother is a good labour' though. That is the sort of thing people say who want women to STFU about their bad experiences with the maternity system.

I think the only indicator of a good experience is the women involved feeling in her heart it was a good experience.

Not all women make babies but every human came out of a woman. Everybody knows this really.

This is bullshit But remember this: any labour that results in a healthy mother and a healthy baby is a good labour. for many many woman they have long lasting mental health issues after birth even thought they are outwardly healthy. I have several friends with PTSD after “good” birth.

I was assuming that mental health would be included in the idea of a "healthy mother", otherwise it doesn't make any sense. I didn't think it was an attempt to deny the effects of PND/PTSD, and other mental health conditions that result from pregnancy.

This is bullshit But remember this: any labour that results in a healthy mother and a healthy baby is a good labour. for many many woman they have long lasting mental health issues after birth even thought they are outwardly healthy

Agree entirely.

And yet, despite my horrible and distressing experiences around dc1s birth, ultimately I still felt empowered and awesomely female.

How can this be? I felt disempowered during labour. I had birth injuries that will affect me for the rest of my life. I felt utterly dehumanised by the male registrar who sewed me up. PND crushed me. I had overwhelming and distressing flashbacks.

And yet...I did something uniquely female, I did something uniquely womanly, I did something utterly amazing and completely ordinary. And no matter how awful it was, I'm glad I did it.

But remember this: any labour that results in a healthy mother and a healthy baby is a good labour
Whilst this is ^ is horse shit I liked a lot of that piece.

I got pregnant with my first as a teenager at university. I had no idea of what my body was capable of. I was propelled from naive student to a different person as soon I was handed my DS and realised I had done that. Me. I did that.

I have, over the years, found pregnancy more illuminating than labour though, personally, including pregnancies that did not result in a live birth for whatever reason.
Being pregnant made me realise how much society thinks it owns you, how you are up for debate and discussion. Just walking around the supermarket and choosing your groceries for the week brought comment from strangers about exactly what I was doing wrong.

Unfortunately hardly anyone reading 'healthy morher' is thinking of her mental health. Or her partner's mental health. Too many people view birth as an ordeal to be endured no matter what as long as the baby is healthy and mum is alive at the end. You see it on the other boards on here related to birth all the time, the idea that home birth is selfish etc.

But remember this: any labour that results in a healthy mother and a healthy baby is a good labour

I read this more as pointing out that a drug free waterbirth isn't somehow superior to someone with an epidural or a C-section?

itsall that was my first thought too. Having medical assistance during your birth doesn't make that birth any less of a monumental achievement.

My second thoughts were that a birth can result in a baby with health issues/disabilities and still be a good birth. In some cases it can result in a baby that is not going to live for very long and be a good birth. Some women choose tfmr for a a non viable pregnancy, others choose to carry to term knowing that they will only meet their baby briefly after birth. Both are 'good' in a sense, if they are the result of a mother making a free and informed choice.

Birth trauma groups are full of women whose horrible, traumatic experiences and ongoing physical and mental health issues are dismissed because they have a healthy baby and look like they're in one piece.

There's nothing brave or strong or to be proud of for some of us in what happened during birth, only pain and terror and regret and a horrible, overwhelming inadequacy that our bodies didn't work how they should have. I felt and was treated like an object rather than as a participant, and had my consent violated.

The only heroics involved for me with my first birth were in living with the aftermath, and in overcoming my fear to have another child.

My birth was traumatic but that's because I ended up induced because I was 2-3 weeks overdue, then there was meconium then he was big with shoulder dystocia. It was horrendously painful and I was off my head on drugs.
None of this was the maternity staff's fault though, they were great. Sometimes labour just is traumatic and it's no-one's fault

I like it, but what's all this about referring to women as "heroes"? I mean, we spend ages trying to have women's value, as women, recognised, and then allow people to refer to us as if we were men.