Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Why Negative Birth Stories Are Not Helpful

The first time you see that white stick with two pink lines, or the word 'pregnant', the world stops. Any noise disappears, all thoughts stop as you look down on the indication that your life has changed forever. The next impulse is to share the news with everyone you know. When Weston and I found out, we called my parents and told them. His mother was in town and he called her to come over NOW! We were so excited that we didn't sleep much that night. There was nothing but excitement and joy in our house. We are having a baby!!!

But with the information that you're having a baby, comes the inevitable horror stories. Women who feel the need to share their horrific tale of giving birth. Our society has gotten very good at creating a social atmosphere of fear around something that is natural, beautiful and the closest to heaven we can be. Perfect strangers feel they can, and should, say whatever they want about your pregnancy/how to birth your child.


My first experience with this was at the Superbowl party that my sister was hosting. I was newly pregnant, only 3 months or so, and we had just started telling people outside of immediate family. A good friend of the family was also at the party, whom I really do love. We told her we were pregnant and she seemed excited, but immediately dove into her terrifying, horror film kind of story of giving birth. I sat there at the kitchen table astounded that instead of sharing in the joy and love both myself and my husband have for the little apple baby that was inside me, she told me a story that would make any woman want to get an abortion.

After that wonderful (eye roll) experience, I started to shy away from people that wanted to tell me their birthing experience. Being a big fan of the movie The Business of Being Born produced by Ricki Lake, I found a book called Pushed by Jennifer Block recommended by Ricki Lake. This book is a great informative book about the health industry and what they have done to the pregnant women over the years. While it was a good book, I found myself getting paranoid about what was happening to my baby and terrified I was getting of hospitals. I stopped reading it about half-way through the book because I was starting to obsess over what COULD go wrong.

Over the months I have created something of a bubble around myself and others that wish to share their birth experience unless I KNOW they are going to be positive and uplifting. Not that I want to ignore other people and their experience, I firmly believe in the idea that we create our existence through our thoughts and actions. The more a soon to be mommy hears that birthing is horrible, they will believe it is horrible. But if she is like me, determined to create a beautiful, peaceful, heavenly experience with my child's birth, we are reinforcing that belief through uplifting stories and joy and excitement.

So if we meet on the street, grocery store, or church, know that I love you; but I will stop you if you share a 'birthing horror story' with me. Help me create a beautiful birth of my little boy!


5 comments:

  1. Whenever we would tell people that we were planning a homebirth for our baby they would then feel obligated to tell us that if their baby hadn't been born in the hospital, it would have died and then go into the details. After a while we just stopped telling people, not because we were doubting our choice, but because we didn't want to hear another lecture or horror story. Unfortunately, and something that most people would never admit about their own birth experience, most of the so called emergencies are caused by "necessary" medical interventions or just paranoia about the natural process of birth. You might be interested in the book " Birth as an American Right of Passage." Good luck with your upcoming birth!

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    1. I commend you for having the courage to stand your ground on this topic. I'm much like you in that I don't talk about it much and I leave it unless someone asks. The funny thing is that I will say to people that I'm going to let Michael (his full name is Michael Thomas Bell) come when he wants to, and they will look at me like that is a foreign idea. Come when he wants to? But what about when you want him to? I just smile. :)

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  2. I definitely believe that some people create the "horror" themselves. Not to say that emergencies/scary situations don't happen, cause they do, but I really think that because there is such a huge stigma around giving birth as being painful, that's what lots of women expect. I just read about my friends birthing experience with her second and she was soooo overly dramatic about it. To me, it wasn't that big of deal, but to her she states it as, "the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life". The baby was completely healthy, no complications, but to her she was experiencing hell because she had to wait for her epidural longer than she wanted. I really think a lot of it was in her head.

    Before I gave birth to Janen, people would share their experiences with me good & bad. Random strangers would ask me in public if I was scared of giving birth for the first time. I answered in all honesty that i wasn't. I wasn't expecting it to be cake-walk, but I knew that if I let fear grow inside of me than I would end up having a bad experience. Yes, my healing was a little more painful down there than I would've liked to have experienced, but it certainly didn't traumatize me. But because the whole experience was very new to me, I felt like I missed out on enjoying some moments. This time around, I know what to expect and even more so what I want to get out of the experience.

    I think the fact you want to keep the negative stories out is a good thing. Birth is a beautiful thing! When they place that sweet little boy on your chest for the first time your heart will be so full, you won't be able to contain your joy. Believe that it will be a joyful experience (yes, even labor) and that's what you will remember. :)

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    1. Creating my own experience has been what I wanted from the beginning. I'm taking a hypnobabies class (which just started and I love it!) and doing lots of reading about using oils (doTTera) and how to create the atmosphere I want. Thankfully the birthing center I'm going to is totally on board with what I want and is going to back me up the whole way.

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    2. I love it! I love that you want to be in control of your environment and experience as much as possible. I definitely want to do a birthing center next time around!

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