Her body bore the scars of a grueling pregnancy and a harrowing delivery that stretched her to her limits, leaving wounds both visible and hidden. Despite the anguish, her love for her son shines through, a testament to the fierce resilience and unbreakable connection forged in the crucible of pain and hope.
So as I write this I’m feeding my 7 week old son. I am totally in love with him, he is amazing. However… The process of bringing him into the world was not good. At. All.
I had incredibly bad morning sickness, to the point that I weighed less at the end of my pregnancy than before I conceived (my bmi was 23 pre pregnancy). I could barely walk due to bad hips, my stomach muscles tore apart, and I got a ridiculous number of stretch marks all across my stomach and back.
Then came labour and delivery. I was in labour for 92 hours. My son was back to back, so i was in agony. I had two failed epidurals, ended up on gas and air, paracetamol, and morphine, and still spent hours screaming into the abyss.
In the end his heart rate dropped and I had to have him delivered in theatre by ventouse.
I ended up with a second degree vaginal tear, which got infected. My son was ill following delivery and ended up in the NICU for a few days. I had issues breastfeeding once he was out of NICU, and ended up getting mastitis twice within a week, before my milk supply dried out totally.
I spent 12 days in hospital total before going home.
Once home my son got ill again and ended up back in hospital on three occasions.
He’s finally better and we are finally a normal happy family at home.
Well, before I got pregnant / gave birth people would tell me how magical pregnancy was and how giving birth wasn’t that bad and that you forget the pain as soon as you hold your baby etc.
Which, pardon my French, is bollocks. I still remember every moment of pain and currently don’t believe I could mentally deal with another pregnancy.
Part of the reason I think I have struggled so much emotionally with all the issues I had was that my experience totally jarred with my expectations. Nobody told me that everything can go wrong.
I didn’t expect my birth plan to go as I hoped, but i thought I might get some things I wanted. I never expected to have such difficulties feeding my son. I didn’t prepare for him being ill.
I didn’t prepare for feeling totally helpless and useless.
So when my childless friends (who planned on having children in the future) asked me how labour and delivery went, I was totally honest. I didn’t sugar coat anything. I explained everything exactly as it was, and told them of the problems we had as they happened.
I have been very honest in saying that whilst my son was worth all the pain, I probably won’t be doing it again.
Well my friends have said that I’m an asshole for being so honest as I’ve put them off having children in the future. I didn’t mean to scare them, but I felt that I would have rather had more realistic expectations of what could happen.
I don’t feel like I should apologise or say that I exaggerated anything to make them feel better, but maybe I’m wrong.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) is experiencing significant emotional distress stemming from a highly traumatic pregnancy, labor, delivery, and subsequent postpartum period involving multiple medical crises for both herself and her newborn son. Her central conflict arises from her honest recounting of these negative experiences to childless friends who plan to have children, leading those friends to accuse her of being an ‘asshole’ for potentially discouraging them.
Should the OP feel obligated to soften or hide the harsh realities of her birth experience to manage her friends’ future expectations, or does her right to honest disclosure outweigh the impact her truth has on their decision-making process? Is honesty about potential suffering a necessary service or an inappropriate imposition when discussing personal medical trauma?
Here’s how people reacted:
Currently pregnant and I HATE people that tell me ohhhhhh pregnancy is magical. No it the hell isn’t. I can’t poop for days, I’m always in some kind of pain, I’m losing my memory, I cry over everything, I feel sick all the time and my body will never be what it was…and I loved my body.
I’m also a reproductive physiologist, so I came into this well prepared for all of it. But it doesn’t make it any less shitty. I think the world does a major disservice to women by telling them that pregnancy and birth is beautiful. If a woman is prepared and she chooses to still go through with pregnancy knowing what may happen, she’s less likely to experience PTSD if she does have a really rough birth.
Please, keep telling everyone about your experience. While what you went through is not the normal, every woman needs to know that it’s possible. I’m so sorry you had such a traumatic birth experience and the post natal care sounds rather nerve wracking as well. But I am very happy to hear you have such a loving relationship with your child.
You are NTA in no way shape or form. Anyone who tells you so is naive and not prepared for the life event that is pregnancy.
I’m brutally honest as well. I think we need to cut the crap around childbirth. Too many people go on expecting it to be magical, to instantly master breastfeeding, to have that perfect emotional bond with your child. The truth is it doesn’t always work like that.
With my first I had PPD. I was so emotionally vacant I didn’t connect with him for months. He was formula fed as I didn’t produce. With my second I instantly bonded and am breastfeeding successfully after 3 hard months of work.
We as women need to support each other. Part of that is honesty. If all we ever hear are these perfect birth stories and perfect baby stories then we assume it’s our fault when it isn’t perfect.
Break the silence.
Now I will say that when you talk to new moms, it’s still important to be gentle. Honest without glorifying the trauma. Because your experience won’t be their experience.
And if someone isn’t asking, and is excited and positive, let them have that. But as long as you aren’t trying to shit on someone’s enthusiasm with your trauma, you’re good.
Like a slaughterhouse. Maybe give a little truth but finish with the happiness and love you feel now and how it was worth it rather than the full horrors .
>Nobody told me that everything can go wrong.
is exactly why. No one really talks about these things and it’s dangerous not to. Women should be fully informed about what could happen to them during such a traumatic process. Describing pregnancy as magical and painless didn’t do you any favors and it’s ridiculous to expect you to lie about your own experiences in order to keep other women in the dark.
They ask, you answer honestly. I see nothing wrong with that.
In fact, I’d say if they can’t handle the worst of it, maybe they SHOULD reconsider or give more thought to having a child.
>Well my friends have said that I’m an asshole for being so honest as I’ve put them off having children in the future.
If that’s all it took to put them off of having children, you did them a favor because they definitely could not handle the horror show of parenthood.
No way. We need more women like you. If they don’t want to have kids now based on your experience, that’s their problem. It was very honorable of you to be up front with what they might encounter during pregnancy.
Not at all! The world needs more mothers to be honest about what can happen during pregnancy and birth! It’s not all rainbows and sunshine! Thank you for being blunt about your experiences!