Monday, November 17, 2008

"It was the natural part that was traumatic"

I wonder if the powers that be at MDC are surprised by posts on the new birth trauma forum. I certainly am. I did not know that there were so many women on MDC who felt traumatized by unmedicated childbirth ... and had the courage to talk about their experiences.

A current thread on the birth trauma forum is illuminating. I was struck by this statement in particular:

"Anybody who says that c-sections can't be wonderful, healing experiences has never opened themselves up to the possiblity of allowing that to be the case."

The comments in response were equally unexpected:

"There was no "lesson" I needed to learn from it... well, except maybe to stop thinking I was somehow superior because I educated myself on natural childbirth - and to stop judging other for their choices."

"...The pain really blew my mind in a way that I honestly did not expect. I think it's quite presumptive for anyone to assume they know the reasons that a mom would've decided to go for pain relief; the reality is that we all feel it differently and experience it differently and none of us can judge for anyone else what is the right path."

"Me too..except mine was a UC, well, both actually....I'll never go through birth again wthout at least having drugs as an option.....even if i ended up with a "bad" hospital experience, like mean nurses or whatever, nothing they could possibly do to me would be nearly as awful as labor..nothing."

"Yeah, my body didn't care how well I'd prepared, or my positive attitude towards labor, or all the support I had.

It totally beat me."

I wonder if the moderators will allow the thread to continue or feel compelled to "lock it for review" to marginalize women who followed the prescribed path to an "empowering" birth and were nevertheless traumatized by the pain.

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