BIRTH is BIRTH | A Mother’s Perspective on Birth and Stigmas
When you get pregnant you prepare for a “natural birth”. First off, I hate that term because to me ALL birth is natural, and you are a warrior for carrying your baby and delivering no matter how!! Everyone prepares you for a vaginal “natural” birth, and I find there is stigma surrounding having to take an epidural or having a caesarean birth so I wanted to share my experience and perspective for other women and mom-to-be’s who may be going through the same things I did. The common misconception is that c-sections are “bad” or” easy”, let me just state this even though it’s been said many times before I’m sure – A c-section is NOT the easy choice, it is a MAJOR surgery that involves a lot of recovery. Choosing or needing an epidural does not make you weak or a failure of any kind. I had my daughter via emergency c-section and the epidural made me incredibly sick. Not being able to hold much food down for days was awful and due to complications, I had to have a minor procedure done months after her birth. My recovery took more than 6 months and was not “easy” by any means.
From the moment I found out I was pregnant I had been preparing myself to have a “natural” birth, everything I heard around me was stressed upon having a natural unmedicated birth. When I found out my baby was frank breech, my first thought was how can I get this baby to flip, and if not, guess I’m having a breech birth. A frank breech is when the baby’s bottom is down but the legs are straight up with feet near their heads, basically baby is in a v-like shape.
As I found out more about the options available to me, my hopes quickly plummeted. In order to have a frank breech birth there are certain specifications that must be met, for example baby’s head must be within a specific size range and you must have enough amniotic fluid surrounding baby. Turns out I was an ideal candidate, hooray right?! Here comes the BUT, I opted against it… why? The risks to baby and myself were just too high and our number #1 priority was the health and safety of both myself, and my daughter.
What are the risks you ask? Well, your baby can come out bruised and banged up as forceps are very common and you most definitely tear. It gets worse, baby’s head can get stuck in your pelvis and they can die, or the flow of oxygen to baby can get cut off and cause brain damage. In worst case scenarios they will saw your pubic bone in half to pull baby out, oh and also breech birth is only performed by an estimated 50% of OB’s in Canada and isn’t in common practice. These risks were too high to have a “natural” birth, I put in a request for a c-section date which I never got (due to a long wait list) and in the meantime tried the recommendations on the spinning babies website to see if I could encourage baby to naturally flip. Another option I had was to turn the baby through a procedure called ECV - External Cephalic Version. To keep it short it’s a hospital procedure in which they manually turn the baby at 37 weeks which is said to be very painful, and baby could get bruised or flip back anyways. Worst case scenario it induces labour and you would need an emergency c-section. Ultimately, I decided that I was going to let my baby decide if she would flip, maybe there was a reason she was breech.
At first I was saddened and quite frankly felt heart broken at the missed opportunity, it felt like it was a rite of passage as a woman to have a vaginal birth, and that needing an epidural and c-section was some sort of shameful failure. Not to mention that I was terrified of surgery so this was so far from what I wanted, I never thought I would have a c-section - period. This may seem silly but the reason I am bringing it up is that I think we, as a society, put an enormous amount of undue pressure on women to have the perfect vaginal unmedicated birth when in reality, birth is something you have zero control over. As one article, I read stated, “You don’t get a medal for delivering one way or another”. Still, it felt like some invisible audience was judging me, and I felt cheated out of this amazing life and bonding experience and guilt that my baby wouldn’t be naturally birthed. Looking at my beautiful 20-month-old daughter today, I don’t feel cheated at all. I feel incredibly blessed. As soon as she arrived via emergency c-section, all this went out the window. I didn’t miss a rite of passage, I gained a love the day she was born bigger than anything you could ever imagine and to me BIRTH is BIRTH no matter the method. What mattered is that she arrived safe and healthy. We all have different journeys and they are all equally beautiful, no birth method or story makes you more or less. You are enough mama and you are ALL warriors!
