Be your own advocate

Should I feel guilty that I didn't feel the exquisite pain of giving birth?  Should thoughts plague me that maybe I didn't give birth at all, since I didn't feel it? Since he wasn't pushed from me, while I felt every tear and excruciating rush as he came into this world? Would I feel even more connected to him and him to me, if I had? Why do I feel robbed of the childbirth experience?

I came across this article yesterday as I scrolled through the never-ending Facebook feed, and it talked about how C-section rates are on the rise. Women feel "coerced" and "bullied" into having them. That the rate has increased because the birthing environment has changed and has become more clinical. Patients see less midwives and more OBs and OBs, on their best days, are surgeons. So, the environment is less homey and more stark and surgical, which is really, both good, and bad. I guess I would rather have stark and safe, than homey and less-equipped. Disclaimer: the midwives I saw were Certified, which means they had the medical training degrees--not as "old school" as the term "midwife" suggests.  Anyway, the article actually had a version of the statement in it, "Women feel robbed of the childbirth experience." 

Granted, it was an article written about the rise of C-sections in Australia. I argue that it could also be written for the American mom as well. (FYI: http://www.bellybelly.com.au/birth/why-australias-c-section-rate-is-so-high/) I bet with a little more Google searching, I could find similar articles geared towards the very medically fine US of A.

I have had these thoughts since that fateful day when I felt like it was my ONLY option to have the C-section. That I should put off the sound advice of those high-risk-pregnancy-experts I had been forced to see for the past nine months, and take the advice from a physician that I had never even seen face-to-face. He hadn't seen me. Just my "chart." Just a picture of the inside of my uterus that he looked at for under five minutes and made this executive call. In fact, I can't even tell you his name right now.  Or the midwife that relayed this news to me, as I felt panicked, and out of control.

Since that moment, I've wondered if it was a mistake. If I should have slowed down and gone over the facts, and decided for myself that I wanted to go forward with the original plan and have this baby like our mothers have had babies forever and ever. Knowing now, that he only weighed eight pounds, not 11, and that he wasn't too big to fit, and that they were wrong. The doctor that looked at my file for five minutes was wrong, and I could have tried to have the baby the way I wanted... Sometimes I feel the twinge of regret.

I know some women may think I'm nuts. Why would I want to feel that pain or work that hard!? I guess only because I feel as if I didn't have a choice in the matter when maybe I should have.  It wasn't an emergency situation. I could have spoken up.  I am also not saying all of this to judge or apply to another mother's birth plan. I talked to several moms who would pick a C-section over regular birth any day. And it isn't a cake walk anyway. There is another kind of exquisite pain that comes with a C-section. The surgery kind and it lasts for a long time. But I don't want someone to read this and feel offended. I am just speaking about my own feelings.

I go through it all in my head again, and then I look at my little boy and I resign myself to say that he's here the way he was meant to be here. He is healthy and happy.  And that is all that should matter.