Different births - good or bad?

[JordieC]

I've been watching a couple of births on youtube and reading a few stories and it's so interesting to see how people describe their births. Don't get me wrong - I understand why women and their partners want to have choice in how they give birth but sometimes I get annoyed when I hear them describing their births in a number of negative ways. Of course some girls do have negative experiences but I would have thought that if you have a healthy baby at the end, doesn't that outweigh the negatives?

Now I know some of you will think I'm being naive, of course it could affect you but to call the experience terrible things and for it to affect people so badly, well I wish they didn't feel that way and I certainly hope their children don't find that out!

Does planning a birth to be a certain way set you up for disappointment? I've read some wonderful home birth stories and other ideas and when they work out well I am very happy for the family but it's so sad to read about the girls that have certain expectations and it doesn't go to their plan and they are so disappointed.

I don't want to upset anyone and I know that some girls have had awful experiences but there are also some stories where they want it "just so" and for medical and safety reasons it can't always be that way. Just a few thoughts.

[krysalyss]

I know what you are saying but I have to say I was really traumatised by my birth and I didnt expect that at all. I prepared as much as I could but certainly some things went wrong and at one point I thought I had lost DS. I am so in love with my son though and it was so worth it but I do feel the need to be honest about the birth in order to get closure from the experience.

[JordieC]

I totally agree with you and others being able to epxress how you feel and to deal with anything that was negatiove about the birth - it's ahealing process. What I don't understand is the girls who are, dare I say it, obssessed with a "perfect" plan and when it doesn't go that way they are bitterly disappointed. I know I wouldn't want a C-section or even drugs next time but if I had to because there was danger then I would - I think mum and baby's health is so important.

[tan32]

I was rather naive going into labour with my first , i had no expectations so i just went with what was going on.
With DS no amount of planning would have mattered he was born to quickly and caught every one of guard.
I have had the pleasure of having rather easy labours, my family say i was born to breed, but i have girlfriends who have had terrible times and who have come out of the birth feeling very traumatic. It makes me very grateful for my labours and birthing experiences.
I think it would be like having any bad experience in hospital etc, you are going to feel let down and upset, i dont think it means that these woman love their children any less and in most cases they may have feared for their babies lives, which would leave me with a sickening feeling myself.

Yes we are all grateful with having happy healthy babies, but im guessing it would still hurt to have what you thought would be an enjoyable experience turned into a three ring circus.

[Ellibam]

i think its not a matter of the plan going wrong but knowing that birth should be an amazing experience not how its portrayed on tv as a highly intervened medical procedure.

my first birth was traumatic for me i know it was meant to be wonderful but its not what i got at all!(just cos i got a healthy baby didnt mean it wasnt traumatic) but i then made the choice with my second baby to have it at home and i got what i KNEW birth was meant to be like!!
I have healed from both births now!

i also think that after a 'bad' birth when we start to research and prepare for another that we sometimes find that what we were told by the people who are meant to look after us, wasn't nessaceraly in our best interests or our babies. hospital policies saying that we should dilate 1cm per hour is bollocks so many women are told they NEED a c/s cos the are not progressing when all we need is time love and support to birth our babies the way nature intended!
(with the exception of a very small % of women who actually need c/s)

i felt let down by the medical staff, my family, my body, and even this wonderful site. and i think that will be the hardest part to "get over".

and also alot of medical and safety reasons are not what the seem! doctors often make some conditions worse!(strep b, you shouldnt have internals hands dont belong up there in the first place!)

[Neenee Jellybeanie]

Birth isn't just the birth of babies, it's the birth of mothers. Pregnancy and labour and birth all help to prepare not just the body but the mind and the heart for what's to come. So yeah, I rekon it's extreemly important! The way I explained it to my my bubs father was that, it's like your wedding (except to me, more important). On your wedding you become a wife, which has certain expectations of giving and recieving attached to it, and when you give birth, you become a mother . . . and being a mother means you take on 50 000 x more responsibility than you already have! It's the beginning of a whole new life, not just bubs, but yours! I've only had one baby but I'm sure that the ladies who've had more than one find each of their labours to be a profound experience. Even if you're already a mother, you become a new mother every time you have a baby, iykwim?

I think we do need to be flexible though, because sometimes things just don't go the way we want them to. But being too flexible in a hospital setting often leads to unncessary medical invervention. Though having a good doula can help with that