What Your Labor Says About You
You made that birthing plan (or didn’t) and hopefully you have a newborn infant. Congratulations! But now that the mini human is outside of your body, that gives you plenty of (sleepless) time to ruminate over what the hell happened. Did you get that natural drug-free birth you were hoping for? Did your doctor push an unnecessary c-section on you? Did your labor pretty much scar you for having any future hypothetical children? Let’s see what your labor says about you.
If you were all gung ho about a natural labor and experienced the worst pain of your life and are like WTF
Right now, you’re probably scanning your family and friends for liars. That’s right. People who looked you in the face and, to your estimation, LIED about the the utter trauma that you’re currently coping with. You probably also haven’t touched any of the books from your natural birthing library, either, for fear that all the images and suggestions will trigger your PTSD (which you are seriously considering getting looked at by a professional). You plan on both a). staying in bed for as long as possible and b). punching the next clueless moron who goes off about women’s bodies being “designed for childbirth.” Eat me.
(photo: mark ovaska)
If your epidural didn’t work
Since you’ve returned to the mommy forums, you now find yourself among an entire sisterhood of women who start their birthing stories with, “well, my epidural didn’t work so….” All of sudden, these women are like kindred as you find you both share the complete horror that comes with the words “it doesn’t work for all women.” You feverishly trade details about the look you shot your partner when your doctor said, “we’re just going to have to do this without pain-relief.” What the fuck does he/she mean by “we”?
(photo: Haukeland universitetssjukehus)
If you had a quick, easy, and by the book c-section without wanting a natural delivery
Why didn’t anyone tell you that this shiz is major abdominal surgery? You can’t drive. Your tummy smells. And you can barely walk without tearing up, let alone work out. Why do people call c-sections the easy alternative to childbirth? All your friends who delivered vaginally are generally out about after a few weeks. At the rate you’re going, you’re barely able to make it to the shower and cross the room for a glass of water. Not to mention the screaming baby who is not exactly taking to breastfeeding. You’d go online for tips, but all those silly advice forums are just brimming with ladies who will say that your child’s natural ability to bond was “compromised” by your c-section. And back to Netflix it is.
(photo: Hellen_brasil05)
If you had an emergency c-section
While other women may be positively bursting to hash out minutes between contractions and the moment the midwife/doctor/doula said “OK, time to push!,” you’re most likely on the more reserved side. You actually make a point of NOT reliving the moment when you were told that this baby needed to get of your body ASAP – or else. You don’t particularly want to go back to that place when you were terrified that potentially one of the most amazing people you had never even met almost didn’t make it into this world.
(photo: victoriaabeling)
If you had a drug-free labor and it was the most amazing thing you’ve ever experienced
You just got a major and monumental self-esteem boost. For all the complaints or shortcomings you’ve probably ever had about your own body, you’re feeling like nothing short of Superwoman since you triumphantly pushed a mini human out of your vag. The “ring of fire” may have been less than pleasant but the euphoria you got from that last push took you higher than that one time you went to Burning Man. You’re recommending drug-free births to all your friends, always adding that you did a drug-free labor and have lived to tell the tale.
If you had an unnecessary c-section forced upon you
You’re about to kill somebody. Or rather take to some message boards and comment threads with a vengeance so firey that if somebody catches you on the wrong day, you may just start streaming The Business Of Being Of Being Born on your computer just for them. You feel violated, betrayed, and completely victimized by the medical professionals you trusted. Damn it, you should have listened to those natural birth advocates and gone to a birthing center. Not only are you ALREADY planning a vigilant birthing plan for your hypothetical next child, but you’ve already fashioned about eight or so talking points to properly school the ladies at your SIL’s baby shower.
