I was at a 'new mom' group today and everyone was talking about birth stories at one point. It is so frustrating to hear vaginal birth stories when I was so close to having one. I had to stop pushing due to fetal distress. One woman at the group also commented "They were encouraging me to have the c/s, but I'm so happy I refused and had a vaginal birth after all."
Right after my c/s, I I felt like I failed at 'giving birth' and almost felt embarassed that I needed the c/s. And every time I have to tell someone new about my birth, even 2.5 months later, those feelings rise up again. Do they ever really go away?
How do you react emotionally when you hear about others' vaginal births?
Re: Talking about birth stories...
It took me many months to recover emotionally. My CNM was no help at all. My husband, mom and BFF were the best--they listened and validated all my feelings. But I cried a lot, especially when telling someone about it, or reading birth stories.
What made it so hard for me was that I had wanted a natural birth, but ended up pressured to be induced...pain-med free 18 hours...epi...fetal distress/FTP...c/s. I was sooo disappointed and exhausted and drugged by then! I still feel disappointed.
A year later I started doing tons of VBAC research and found a fantastic CPM with a 100% VBAC success rate. Focusing on being educated for next time helps me a lot. I completely believe that I will have a VBAC (though I will have a c/s plan, just so I'm prepared). But reading birth stories, especially VBAC and c/s similar to mine, I still get emotional.
Giving birth is the single most emotional thing I have ever done. And unfortunately it was a unwanted, unnecessary c/s, so I have a lot of negative emotions.
It depends.
I never feel like I "failed" like you mentioned, but I was completely let down that it didn't happen the way I had hoped it would. My experience was not nearly as tramatic as others...I feel like I did everything I could and it was the best decision at the time for the situation and I still had a lot of control in the situation (thank goodness for wonderful nurses and doctors).
Honestly, it depends on who is talking about it. It depends on my mood that day. It just depends.
The thing that really gets my emotions going is when I hear stories of first time deliveries and how someone might have just scheduled a c-section without a second thought. I'm not talking about medically necessary c-sections. I'm talking about...oh, my due date is getting close and I'm just going to schedule a c-section instead of trying other options first....any doctor that allows/encourages that is a Doctor I'm running from. Oh, and I just want to scream...YOU AREN'T EVEN GOING TO TRY?!?!?!?!?! That's when my emotions get the best of me.
Sorry, that was long and I guess I needed to get that out.
Hang in there.
The c/s wasn't bad for me physically. The procedure itself went well; I felt nothing during it. I had no complications afterward. By day 4 after the c/s, I was on no pain medications and felt fine. By 10 days, I was at about 95% normal.
The c/s wasn't bad physically, but it hit me emotionally. Most days I don't think about it, but once in a while, when I have to relive the story by telling it to someone, the emotions all come back to me.
I've been through the whole range emotions - anger, sadness, jealousy, disappointment, blame, etc, etc. Then you add to that people who say uneducated things (like a friend who was hoping for a c-section). It's tiresome.
So, I set up a "no birth stories" rule with myself. I try to avoid those conversations. If someone tries to draw me in - I say something like "yeah it was an interesting experience." I don't want to share my story any more. If someone says "well, at least you get to schedule your next birth," I just say, "yeah, that will be nice." They don't need the details
Eventually, you will like hearing VBAC stories and stories about tough, but successful vaginal births. It will pump you up for next time.
I still have a very difficult time listening to vaginal birth stories and I had my c/s 14 months ago. I am overcome by extreme feelings of jealousy, anger, and then sadness that I "failed" at giving birth.
I even have a hard time seeing vaginal births on TV (whether "real" on TLC or scripted sitcom births).
That's why I am so thankful to have this board to go to because you ladies "get it". So many of my friends (regardless what type of birth they had) always put down my feelings and don't understand why I don't "just get over it".
I had a rough time emotionally after my c/s. After going through infertility, the c/s felt like one more way my body had failed me. And I felt like I had failed, even though I knew that wasn't rational.
Eventually I felt like I was better... maybe 6mo or so after DD was born. But when I was pg again and started going to ICAN meetings, I found that I could not tell my story without crying. I had just been giving people the glossed-over, condensed version of my birth story, and faced with a room full of women who wanted the real details, who KNEW why I wasn't ok with my c/s... it made it hard all over again. But telling the story then and having people not brush off my feelings was healing and helped me so much.
Honestly, it took me having a VBAC for *some* of the sting to go away when I heard of others (esp. FTM) having easy vaginal births. I made it to 9cm when all hell broke loose with my first and had a horrendous c-section. It hurt - emotionally and physically - for a long, long time.
Now several years later... while it doesn't bother me like it used to, there are still underlying emotions that are somewhat negative.
My friends don't understand my emotional pain/anger/jealously/sadness about this. My good friend just had her first baby and everything went *perfect*. I couldn't help but feel such jealousy. She had the delivery I wanted. I am a talker, so I try to talk it out, but as I mentioned, I can't because no one understands. No one in my family, and none of my friends have had a c/s. It has gotten easier, but I'm not sure when (or if) I'll get over it.
It's OK to feel sad, but please don't feel like you failed. We cannot control what happens inside our bodies, we can only assist in the process. Do what you need to, to help cope. Remember, it's still new and fresh at this point.