A Tale of Two Births

Picture above shows me, Donut and a brand new Nacho chilin at CPMC.  Admittedly I did not enjoy being pregnant either time but really do enjoy my children...most of the time...sometimes they make me crazy but that is too be expected.  With just enough knowledge and resourcefulness to be a danger to my anxiety and my husband's patience, I like every other lady having kids in their 30's obsessed over the right birthing experience.  It's a mix of suffering, martydom, entitlement and ego - there, I said it ;) 

With Donut it was a slam dunk c-section decision given she was in the breech position and in a pike formation.  But what I didn't expect was the sheer amount of guilt I felt that I was opt-ing for surgery instead of doing the "right thing" of birthing through the chute.  I should get over this because this situation is exactly what medical intervention was designed for.  In no way do I want to go backwards to the middle ages and risk both our lives but it is interesting how the social views are evolving towards pregnancy, birth and child rearing.

With Nacho, I felt like I had to somehow redeem myself and at least "try" to birth him through the chute... and I obsessed over it...how would I know?  is it dangerous? by how much? is it responsible for me to do this?  what if something went wrong?  And of course people were more than willing to share whatever random horror story they had of a friend of a friend whose VBAC went horribly wrong, ended up with an emergency c-section and now have a child with developmental delays because of the time stuck in the birth canal. 

Why on earth do people NEVER share the billions of good, easy birth stories?  Why is the universe insistent on instilling fear and paranoia in every pregnant woman?

Well let me tell you something, both births of my children were totally boring.  No screaming, crying or blood transfusions or whatever... just your standard infant pushed through the chute or extracted from a c-section.  That said...having had babies delivered both ways, I am not sure which one is better.