Excuse me, C-section Mamas are WHAT?!

I had a WHOLE different post written up before this, but it was mostly my hormonal bitching about not being able to go out of town anymore because Chloe will be here in a month. Not worth reading. And the only other thing I hear about with any frequency on the news is about Justin Bieber and his idiocy, and how he’s been doing stuff that would get any other person with a work visa freaking deported.

Earlier, I was reading an article about something called ‘Family-Centered Cesareans’. It was pretty interesting, and as a mother who has had a C-Section with her first pregnancy, I can tell you, I’d have appreciated a LOT of what this article was saying… I’d have loved some relaxing music, or to hold my child directly after birth, and even to see her being pulled from me.  

What got to me were some of the comments.

See this? It was NOT easy being
cut open, let me tell you...
Healing that crap HURTS!

Lots and lots of ignorance.

A lot of people were saying that ‘Women who have c-sections are lazy’, and ‘haven’t you seen The Business of Being Born, educate yourself’ and more. I’d like to clear the air from one C-section mother to the many who apparently don’t know some of these things that cause a woman to have a C-section.

First off, no, we’re not lazy. Considering the recovery time in a C-section, and how miserable you feel once the anesthesia wears off some, I guarantee you we’re not lazy. Have you ever stood up and felt like your entire intestines were going to fall out of your stomach from the movement? Had to hold a pillow to your gut to laugh, sneeze, or cry?  Had to try and prop yourself up to attempt to do a night nursing with the searing pain of a knife ripping through your stomach?

Yeah, not lazy. We go through quite a bit to have a healthy, happy baby, thank you. I applaud you for being able to have a vaginal birth, but please don’t call me or others like me lazy for not being able to do the same.

Swear to God if one more
person asks me if I've seen
this movie...

To answer that, YES, about
15 times!

Second, we’re ‘uneducated’ about doctors and we’ve let ourselves be pressured, the body was made for this, etc. Yes, we’re well aware that our bodies were made to have children. However, not every person who has a C-section has not done any research and is going into this blindly. I, personally, read EVERYTHING I could before I allowed this to be done to me. I was seeing a midwife, not an OB. I was on a very healthy diet, no junk food, I was planning an all-natural water birth and wasn’t even using Tylenol. Then, after having to go to the hospital… we found out our daughter was transverse breech. She was laying horizontally in there. We tried to get her to turn, I did all kinds of yoga and other things, but she was not budging, so by 34 weeks, we were scheduling her C-section.

It was the LAST thing I wanted, and seeing the many comments on articles and pages about how lazy and stupid women who ‘let themselves be conned into’ a C-section were, I actually cried. I mean come on… how narrow-minded do you have to be to think that all women go into this blindly, with no thought about other ways to do it? That it’s an easy choice?

It wasn’t. And I hated having to have it. So no, I was not uneducated, and many other women who have C-sections are not uneducated, either.

Yeah not all C-sections fall
into this category.

Third, all C-sections are/should be ‘emergency’. Just… no. Breech babies that will not turn are not an emergency, but they still have to come out.

Fourth, our bodies were made to do this… Gee, thank you for making me feel MORE defective. I am well aware that our bodies are made to house and birth a child… it doesn’t mean that things always work out and go that way. My body being made to do it, did not make my daughter flip in there. Our bodies being made to do it, does not make the larger baby that got stuck in the birth canal come out easier.

Yes, our bodies are made for this, but sometimes, shit happens.

And lastly, in general… why does anyone else care HOW a baby is born? I mean honestly, does it make the baby have a serious problem if they’re born one way over another? No? Does a woman having a C-section affect you in any way whatsoever? No? So why do you care?

This really falls into the ‘mind your own business’ category here. Even if a woman chooses a C-section, what does it matter to you? Why do you care? Why, in the grand scheme of things, is this, a C-section, so much of a big deal that you have to call the woman lazy for it? Why are you so incapable of minding your own business, not passing any judgment on them for not having a vaginal birth, and instead just celebrating the life they carried for 9 months and now have in their arms?

Is it that tough?

I’m having my second daughter VIA C-section in February. I wanted to try for a VBAC, but the way I was cut the first time plus other issues we’ve had this pregnancy, we felt safer, not only my OB but me and my other half as well, to just have the C-section. I realize that the risks of uterine rupture are low, but those are risks we don’t want to take. I want to minimize the risks of leaving my child without her baby sister and without her mother, leaving my other half to care for her alone.  

I don’t want to risk that. And that alone should be enough. For us, that meant having the surgery.

So before you call a mother lazy or uneducated for the way her child is/was born, remember, you have no idea WHAT that woman went through, and she has no reason to justify herself to someone who probably doesn’t care to hear it anyhow.