A couple of weeks ago there was a ridiculous meme making its way around the Internet written by an almost hilariously ridiculous group who are clearly either attention seeking, satirical or downright bonkers.
The meme that caused the big stir was accompanied by the words “Pregnancy is a beautiful thing as it is the zenith of a woman’s role in a moral Christian society. If God has decided to call you home, it is not up to you or a doctor to reject Him. You may find yourself cast into the lake of fire for doing so. God’s Peace.” I laughed at the angst in that post but when I saw how much media attention it was getting I felt slightly uncomfortable that someone with clear issues was getting so much time in the limelight.
The words of the meme were clearly quite insane and, other than the fact that they were getting attention, they didn’t bother me any more than any fanatical doctrine bothers me. But in the ensuing internet outrage that followed I was given to think about birth and c-sections and how some people get so hysterically righteous about that one day in their lives.
I have one child, borne to my husband and I fourteen years ago. I had suffered multiple miscarriages before his birth and this pregnancy had been rough. Hospitalised at 24 weeks with preeclampsia I knew that I was not “good at pregnancy” and I also knew, even then that I probably would not want to go through this again.
At 30 weeks gestation I was in a world of pain, my ankles were wider than my thighs and I was tired, emotional and did I mention that I was in pain? The doctor who specialised in pregnancy diseases came to see me, she sat next to my hospital bed that Friday night all those years ago and explained how my kidneys were failing and my baby no longer thriving. She said to me in her beautiful, calm and reassuring voice “We can’t wait any longer, I am scheduling you for a caesarean tomorrow”.
My obstetrician was not authorised to perform the delivery at the hospital in which I lay, I had been transferred to a hospital with better facilities for a premature baby, and so the next day a man who I only remember as looking like Gepetto from an animated version of Pinocchio I had watched years ago, delivered my beautiful baby boy.
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I don’t regret a second of it. My child’s health (and mine) had been at stake. The only thing that mattered was getting him out of me – for both of our sakes. I wouldn’t change a second of how that day played out given the same set of circumstances leading up to it.
But still there is a part of me that sometimes reads about birth and delivery, labour and contractions and wonders what it would be like. I am a mother to the most awesome human I know but I have no idea what the process of birth is like. I know that it doesn’t matter but still I wonder about it.
Perhaps luckily I will never know the pain of labour, the way a contraction tears through the body. I will never experience the sensation of waters breaking or a head making its way down the birth canal. I have nothing to contribute to stories of long labours and, perhaps most importantly, I will never know how it feels to have a newborn baby placed on your chest after his birth. I feel like I have not given birth although of course I have.
Perhaps I have watched too many movies, too many soft focus ads that have replaced the facts with a romanticised story of pain, mess and absolute elation but I will never know. Even though I have a child, I don’t have any idea of what it’s like to give birth “naturally”. But I do know what it’s like to be a mother and really, that’s all that matters when it comes to parenting.
Watch Kerri and I chat about it here… her story provides another interesting perspective. As it always does.
Do you feel you missed out on the birth experience you expected?
I am appalled at the thought that because you have a caesar you have are inferior, bloody idiots. First baby was too big and in danger of dying, second baby I had major previa placenta and spent the last 6 weeks in hospital. I feel the need to hit something, anything really. Oh and by the way my stomach now folds over the scar, joy.
Oh we have matching stomachs! xxxx
I agree! I fell off my chair when I heard this. While I completely respect whatever reason a woman has for having a c-section, I was in active labor for 36 hours, pushing for four, and my OBGYN stood me up on a night when an unprecedented number of babies were being delivered. No doctor came to deliver me until my baby’s HR was dropping to 50. The c-section was emergency, and did damage to my birth canal; and now I am pregnant and have almost no chance of delivering vaginally
Guess I’m just an inferior woman who can’t get the job done.
The religious fanatics are fruitloops. Lana and Kerri, do you know what a superior birth is? Its the one where mother and child survive. How the child came into world doesn’t matter. Vaginal birth with or without drugs, epidural, Caesar that’s irrelevant. I’m getting quite cheesed off with all this religious fundamentalist clap trap. What’s next a Paleo birth where you go and have the child in a dark cave somewhere. With so many things that can go wrong the sound of the baby crying as they take their first breath is all that matters.
I agree with you 100% Patrick and I am completely nonplussed by the religious or fundamentalist voices. But I still wonder what it would be like to have a more “natural” birth…. for my own selfish curiosity rather than anything else
Yes Lana but your reasons are logical. The desire to experience something that through circumstance you missed out on and wont be able to is understandable. Its logical to try and understand and feel that. Your reasons are poles apart from the stuff that the galahs that are espousing in their meme.
I love that a man chimed in on this issue-it is so important that we mothers and pregnant women feel that we have men rooting for us, too. I hoe this doesn’t sound sexist in any way–I have a son, and I hope he hands connection to the human experience of carrying and birthing another human. Thank you!
i understood that meme was from a satirical site, but might be wrong.
my birth experience was nothing like i imagined it :
i had preclampsia, too, only picked up in month 8 (had never even heard about it until they told me) and then it suddenly went all so quick, i wasn’t ready, my body wasn’t ready, after a blissful pregnancy, suddenly i was being induced and in a world of PAIN. i didn’t actually want epidural at all – i ended up having 3 – that had no effect, zilch. oh, apart from the vomiting when there was nothing in my stomach, it was totally horrible. i tried but refused teh gaz cuz it made me feel stoned. it took all day, the baby was FINE that was my only consolation. he did come out with the umbilical cord around his neck and stopped breathing for a blink, the midwife acted quick but somehow stumbled over ‘the basin’ and it then covered the floor of the birthing suit like after a bloodbath.
fun times. admittedly, when baby was then at my breast, nothing really mattered anymore.
when i went to the post birth mother group thing of the hospital (we had prenatal sessions before), literally ALL the (french) mums who had so dreaded her births were chipper and talking about an amaaazing experience. the midwife sat down right next to me and told me “you don’t have to say it was great, you know. i was there, it was not. you don’t have to talk about it at all if you don’t want. it’s fine”.
and i really hink it is. it’s that ONE moment in time. i had a good pregnancy, i am thankful for that.
i have a great kid. i love being a mum. doesn’t matter if there were a few technicalities that weren’t exactly enjoyable, that one day in his life.
Wow, that sounds like quite a lot of fun NOT. But that midwife speaks good sense and the days, months and years after the birth are far more important than the birth xx
I had pre-eclampsia with my first too. I was able to push my son out to the degree that when his HR plummeted they had to shove him back up the birth canal to take him out via c-section.
I am well aware that 100 years ago I would be dead. In fact, as many as a quarter of all women died giving birth up until 1900.
While it may be satire, it rings of eugenics, and so can’t help feel like it is in a similar category as saying, “If you are assaulted in the street and you suffer life-threatening injuries, you should just die, because a real man or woman should be able to fight”. It’ seems too obscene and insulting to have any value as satire. It’s like making jokes about rape victims.
Yes. My experience mirrored yours. x
xxx <3
This post has got me on a bad day – limited sleep because the kids would not go to sleep, I’ve pulled a something in my neck / shoulders that is sending pain down the side of my body (don’t know how, but I am sure it has something to do with the uncomfortable position I was in lying next to each child in turn, trying to get them to sleep), and I am panicking because I somehow signed up to walk 100km through the hills for Oxfam, and I have to do that on Friday (why? what was I thinking??? And, it’s probably the kids’ fault – because everything seems to be, in my mind anyway, at the moment) And – I had great plans for starting a ‘gratitude journal’ but the download of the ipad one froze due to the excess number of apps on my computer (it’s refusing to download directly from itunes), all of which the kids have added (I think that’s irony, but Alanais has confused me on this term now). So I am in SUCH A POSITIVE MINDFRAME about the kids at the moment (that is sarcasm – I’ve lost the ability to work out if I am expressing myself clearly or not too, so felt I needed to state this). Hurrumph!
Still – back to your topic (of course, I can’t listen to the podcast, because no volume on computer, because KIDS have done something to the computer – of course – but I have the gist). Both my children were born caesarian and I have not gone through labour. Number one – boy – was breech. Technically, I could have still gone through a natural birth. We were told the risk to my son, in terms of potential brain damage, etc, would increase (not dramatically, but there was a greater risk). No risk to me, really, My obstetrician tried turning Sam a few times but he was determined. Some people (if they genuinely meant what they wrote in that meme) might think it would have been God’s will if he turned out to have damage, but I think they follow a different God to us. So we had an elective caesar (which, as I am a bit concerned with control, I was quite happy with – especially with my anaesthetic nurse husband sitting next to me) and we now have a beautiful 10 year old son.
Baby number 2 was tracking nicely, and I was set for a VBAC, and that is what I wanted (because of the experience, you see, plus the fact that I felt, with the first one, that I missed out on all the labour stories – none that sounded that positive, to be honest, but it’s nice to be part of the club – plus I am not a wuss, and I want to know I did it). However, at 38 weeks, I started feeling nauseous, and a couple of days later, waters broke, meconium in the water (no labour), went to the hospital (having dropped beautiful three year son into my parents to mind briefly, as we expected it to be a false alarm (incidentally – my son was very happy to go to his grandparents, as he was comfortable with them and secure with us too. Strangely – we are very close, and bonded well, even though he was a caesar birth. Don’t know HOW that could have happened! Absolutely BIZARRE!) Anyway, got to the hospital to be told that, again, for the sake of the baby, we should have an emergency caesar (she was very distressed, elevated heart rate, tangled in the umbilical cord, etc). Again, we could have insisted on the VBAC – limited, but some, risk to me, but quite a risk to her. Again, we chose the option of the health of our child over our idealised birth approach – we are a bit strange like that. And the delivery went smoothly (the following 15 months were a nightmare with a child who refused to sleep at night, but that is a whole different story).
It’s a long time ago now, and no one actually has come out and said we took the easy route (possibly because I breast fed for over nine months for each so CLEARLY a worthy mother – so easy to judge these things), however every now and again, I read these things and think ‘why are they making people feel guilty?’ Surely the aim is healthy parents and healthy children? It’s like focusing on the wedding rather than the marriage (yes, we all have some idea of how we might like these ‘events’ to pan out, but they are the start of an ongoing relationship, hopefully, not the end goal).
I have been thinking of turning this topic, since I read about it, into a blog – do you mind if I use this for tomorrow’s (as I have almost now written it!) Cheers, Helen
Please use it – I LOVED reading your comment. And the wedding/marriage analogy is perfect – I use it all the time
PS – Hope you get the iPad sorted out xx
Thanks for letting me rant, too xx
Lana, just further to this particular meme – apparently Disciples of the new Dawn is a satire site (something to do with the initials of the person ‘Father Patrick Oliver Embry’ having the initials of POE, and Poe’s first law “Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.” The problem is – this isn’t humour (in my opinion, anyway). There are some people, scarily, who believe this, and that is what I was reacting to.
I don’t get too troubled about memes like this because the internet is a weird weird place with strange people occupying its space xxx
Seems to be! xxx
Hi, Poor you, what a horrid experience, makes the Child you have so special and such a joy.
I would have loved natural birth, but Doctors told me it may endanger my life so i had 5 caesar’s and i have five blessings. I am so grateful for the experience of motherhood. xoxo Heather
My child is very special – as are yours. xxxx
I had 3 vaginal births and two caesars. If it wasn’t for medical intervention I would have died during all 5 of them what with blood pressure, retained placentas and breech births. You only have to walk around an old cemetery to see how many young women used to die in childbirth. We shouldn’t feel anything about the way our kids came into the world except grateful. P.S. Kerry has the best cheekbones and bone structure ever.
I love me some medical intervention. xxx
As someone who has had the gamut of birth “experiences” from c-section for first (breech), to forceps and epidural for second (extremely long labour) to a water birth for my third I just find the whole better at birthing argument absurd.
While I felt totally ripped off over my first birth because I was not conscious I definitely don’t feel superior for my third birth. Yes I felt stronger and more powerful as a woman after my third birth but that had a lot more to do with living through insane pain and being free from it as soon as she was born. Where with the c-section I was in pain for a long time after obviously because the surgery takes a huge toll on the body, but neither birth made me a more natural or better mother, or better woman.
While the meme was probably satire it does highlight the way society attempts to divide and conquer women by pitting us against each other.
I’ve never had kids and let me say kudos to all of you ladies out there for having gone thru the experience of ,,cooking,, a brand new human being and bringing him/her into the world, no matter how you did it! Now I am not the least bit ashamed to say that if I ever have a child I would opt for an elective C section and I would happy as hell that the option is available because to ME not only as a woman but as a human being, going thru vaginal delivery would be no option and I would remain childless. I could care less of how this sounds to others my body is my choice and I will exercise it with no regrets! I’ve had the harsh experience of losing my virginity during a rape and I’ve had enough trauma and enough things stuck in me everywhere you can think of to have left me severely traumatized and oposed to any kind of invasion below the belt. going to the gynecologist is already painful enough but its the most I’m willing to accept. So as long as I have a say in it I will never allow any more trauma and pain and tearing amd bleeding to happen to me. I wouldn’t be able to mentally bear the experience. I am getting thru life doing the best I can and I am eternally greatful for the option to have an elective C. I’ll never bash other women for choosing to allow or choosing to at all cost avoid anything that has to do with their body and I’ll never take to heart someone that does that. It’s usually a woman that is hurt and shamed and embarrassed of what she went thru during labor and so she feels she has to take it on those who didn’t have to go thru the same. Why else would one feel the need to judge with such hate and dismissal? Live and let live, it may sound hippyish but it is as cleAr as it gets. As long as your choices don’t hurt others or leave lasting consequences for others to deal with in your wake then I say ,,hell yeah be as selfish or unselfish as you desire!,, its your body and as long as you’re responsible and your child’s well-being comes first then no one can judge you! it’s all between you and your maker!
Thank you for letting me share my opinion and thank you for sharing your story! Your children are beautiful and so are you! You shouldn’t feel like you are missing anything! who needs the extra trauma? you went thru enough being pregnant and you’re going thru a whole lot more being a mother to two human beings 24/7 for the rest of your life! There’s nothing but greatness in that! Peace and love to all!