Friday, February 3, 2012

Why do people care?

I am not quite sure why people feel the need to ask if your c-section is necessary. I don't ask them if they should really be doing a vaginal birth or natural birth etc. It is really none of my business (or theirs). The same busybodies who make women feel guilty for not breastfeeding seem to be the same who feel the need to tell you why you should do a vaginal birth vs. a c-section. The reality is that the risk of death and complications is virtually the same, though you will not see this on any website promoting "natural" anything. The reality is that it should be the patient's informed choice and not dictated by an insurance company or the government. For many who have had multiple miscarriages or a stillbirth, getting a live baby at the end of it all is the primary goal. In my own situation, I just wanted to get my baby here alive and well and fast, before complications had time to occur. After losing 4 pregnancies and working as hard as I did to achieve this pregnancy I was not about to end up going through a long and stressful (for myself AND my baby) labor. I wanted my child out as quickly as possible even knowing the risks (albeit small) of major surgery. Why do the "pro-vaginal birthers" feel that their opinion is the only one that counts. These are the same women who supposedly promote choice for women and here they are telling other women that it the worst thing that could happen to you is to have a c-section. I think it would be worse to lose my baby, but maybe that is just me... They often argue that women have been giving birth naturally for 500,000 years. Have they ever noticed that prior to modern medicine (including the ability to perform c-sections), the death rate during childbirth was up to 40%.

I guess it comes down to the fact that many of us who worked very hard to achieve our pregnancies do not obsess over something as trivial as thinking we must "experience" vaginal delivery. The more important thing is a healthy baby no matter how we deliver it, don't you think? I think pregnancy was amazing enough, I don't feel the need to "experience" anything but raising my child.

Just had to get that out there...

Oh, and for the record, I was fortunate (though I wouldn't really call it that fortunate!) enough to have had a previous uterine surgery that allowed my doctor to "let" me have a c-section. He would have let me try a vaginal birth, but I just wanted to meet my little boy. And I did.