She sprinkled some noxious looking green hormone dust on me and I woke up a complete and total bitch.
I'm usually a nice person. But I got scammed on Ebay and think I made the poor guy fear for his life. After ripping him a new one through email, filing a dispute and calling his mommy, he gave me my money back. LOL. POWER!
If someone crosses me, they are likely to get a rather large and unappetizing chunk of my mind these days. There was recently a discussion on childbirth in a computer game forum I belong to. I am SO SICK of hearing people prattle on about how childbirth is so horrible! So painful! Women almost die from it all the time! You have to allow the doctors to give you drugs! There are no prizes for natural birth! Ah, piss off.
Put on your freakin' big girl panties and have a baby. It's just not that big a deal. The question that started it all was "Is the pain of childbirth overrated?" To which I answered a very mild "Yes. There are lots of things that hurt worse than childbirth, like root canals, broken bones and some tattoos. I've had 6 babies plus all of the above so I know from what I speak". Well, that led to a whole litany of women who had gone through birth uneducated, unprepared, unsupported, on their backs, tied to a monitor and IV, who thought it was like going through hell and back.
"Well, if you go through it like that, it probably will be like hell, but it doesn't HAVE TO BE," which led to more wounded outcries about how every culture talks about the severe pain of childbirth.
Sure, some women find it painful. But some women find it orgasmic. Are those orgasmic women physiologically different? Nope. Are their babies physiologically different? Nope. They are mentally different in how they look at birth and labor and pregnancy and even parenting.
Why are women so outraged to hear that birth doesn't have to be horrible???? Why are women angry when you tell them that if they had a midwife or a doula or got upright and moved around, that it's just not that bad?
I never denied that there are complications. I've had a posterior baby and back labor. It hurt. A lot. But I did it, without drugs. I did ask for an epidural, just to voice it, like Louisa says:
Sometimes saying "I think I want an epidural" out loud when you think you just can't stand it anymore is helpful to stepping past that threshold and on toward the end.
But I didn't really want everything that goes with the epidural. Why do women get mad when you say there is more to birth than an exit for the baby? that it can be a profound, spiritual, life-altering rite of passage? That it can (gasp! I'm gonna say it) make us better mothers and stronger women. They don't give out medals, but natural birth does give out alert babies, that have higher apgars, breathe easier, go to the nursery less.
So, what was I saying? Oh yes, the hormone faery...... She came.
4 comments:
Amen, amen, amen!!!
I now competely avoid parenting boards, after terribly offending some women by having the nerve to say that I was satisfied with my unmedicated birth experience.
No, they don't give out medals, but who cares?? It was worth it just to be able to prove to myself that I could do it! That experience has positively affected the way that I think about myself, each and every day.
But, our culture being the way it is, I learned pretty quickly that the only way to talk about unmedicated birth without offending someone, is to say that I am too much a control freak to get an epidural. This is true, but there is so much more about my daughter's birth that I would like to share with real-world people, but don't, for fear of alienating people.
Sigh.
Hear hear. I totally agree. What more can I say?
Right on! I just wish that even women could understand that the sensations related to birth are our bodies' natural way of helping us through birth. It is nessasary and important and completes a totally perfect process. We just gotta surrender to it and have love and support.
Does it hurt your muscles when you work out or run a marathon? Yes! Do we bitch and moan about it? Nope, we understand it is part of the process.
Argh. We have so far to come!
Word.
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