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I’d tell ya, but then you’d probably want me to put you out of your misery. I’d best keep this one to myself, just one of the many services that your favorite cartoonist provides. I’m like a filter. Filter-ing, filter-ing, filter-ing. Except man, that was a bad one. But I’m not telling, ’cause I swear you don’t wanna know. Okay it involves…nope! See you thought I was gonna do it!
But, really what is it that possesses some people to tell pregnant women disgusting, scary, horror stories? I mean, c’mon! The movie Coraline was too scary! From now on, only happy thoughts!
xox,
Heather
I’ve wondered that MANY times myself. While preggie with DD#3 (who is 4 months old now), SO many people told me horrible stories of labors gone wrong. They knew, of course, that I was planning a home birth. I think they were trying to scare me into doing a hospital birth! People just need to be KIND and supportive. Why can’t we be kind and supportive?!?!!
It is pretty crazy. I love “the Bubble of Peace” from Hypnobabies just for this. Let’s in only the good, none of the bad.
Haha, yup, time for the Bubble of Peace!
Haha, yup, time for the Bubble of Peace!
oh dang, now i wanna know. no… maybe i don’t. pregnant women are like beautiful, fragile flower princesses & should be treated as such: everyone around her should shield her from the yuckiness of the world so she can bask in the glow of life emanating from within her womb, not pull out every horrible tale, stupid piece of advice or off-color comment.
I had a horrible first delivery… but I make a point NEVER to tell the story to anyone who’s expecting! The only thing that a stranger should say to a pregnant lady is, “You look wonderful! Enjoy your new baby!” I’ve never understood why total strangers feel the need to talk at length to pregnant ladies, anyway.
it is so strange how “we” feel the need to share only the crap stories and none of the beautiful ones. i think it gives power to those bad stories. we need to start telling our good stories too. good birth stories, good parenting stories, good marriage stories, etc. i would love to hear a great birth story that doesn’t just end with everyone alive, but actually had so wonderfulness in it.
so looking forward to the next book.
heather in maine
i try to be a little more “accepting” of women telling “bad” pregnancy/labour stories. they need to tell their truth, too. and maybe the only audience they have are other mothers/mothers to be.
my SIL had a c-section and when i asked her about it, she didnt want to talk about it. while i can understand, most likely everyone is going to give the pat “but the healthy baby is all that matters” response, when, while that’s good, it’s not all that matters.
of course i also mention my great pregnancies/natural births to large babies when given the chance.
Having just found out that I am pregnant, which is scary enough with an 18 month old toddlerasaurus, I am not looking forward to the never ending stream of heinous birth stories. Fortunately I had a fairly harrowing labor with my first one, and I’ll be able to say with a smile “I was in labor for 69 hours with my first, so come what may, I’m sure this one will be a joy.”
Okay Gals:
I have another perspective. Maybe the telling of pregnancy horror stories to a pregnant woman is like the telling of Grimm’s Fairy Tales to children. Not the Disneyfied fairy tales. The original ones, you know, where hands get chopped off and children get eaten and heads are impaled on sticks. Scare the crap out of the buggers but also impart the message that by your wits and wisdom, you can survive the scary stuff and triumph. In other words, pregnant, laboring woman as heroine who faces her (and socieity’s) darkest nightmares, looks them in the eye, and then says, “I can do this.” and DOES IT, triumphantly.
Jill, that was the most wonderful change of view on the whole situation! Thank you!
I tell my horrible 1st labor story to explain what happens in the medical model. I know fear isn’t what you want to spread but at the same point telling great birth stories only goes so far when trying to prevent hospital rape deliveries. Its like telling your kids “Don’t touch the stove its hot.” Sometimes love requires warnings.
you know, I try to focus on the positive… so when someone brings up the subject, then sure, I’ll tell the scary story of my first birth, the pros and cons of my first vbac, and then the story of my second… I think the combination of them acknowledges the mom’s fear that yeah, they might end up with the problems that they’re asking me about, but it doesn’t doom you forever… not only can you go on and not be traumatized from having more kids, but you can get past it and have better birth experiences.
Unless asked for the downers, I definitely don’t get telling all this to strangers who don’t ask for the info… and i also agree pregnancy and birth should be kept on a positive note (not that moms shouldn’t know the realities of it, but do they have to hear the worst?
I don’t get this, I really don’t. My first delivery just over six years ago was a stillbirth (at 29 weeks & not related to delivery complications) and I avoid telling that story to pregnant women, or anyone really. If it does come out, the first thing a lot of people want to say is “Oh you poor thing, having to go through all that for nothing! They should have given you a c-section.” They find it hard to understand the pain & possible complications of a section, or how it would have taken things even further out of my hands. His birth (even though I opted for pethidine which made me horribly sick) was an empowering experience, my goodbye to him, and the only ‘good’ memory I have from all that.
My daughter is 4 1/2, was more than twice his size and her birth was great. It was over in a few hours, I walked around for most of it, delivered on my side and felt in charge (most of the time, at least). I didn’t tear and was uh ‘fully functional’ within a couple of weeks. She weaned just over a year ago. THAT is the experience I share with everyone, in the hope that they too will go into labour informed, confident & relaxed – and that because of that, their births will have the best chance of going as smoothly as mine did.
If I ever have another child I’d love to have a home birth. I just can’t see birth as being the negative, dangerous event that so many like to portray it as.
a friend at work was telling me her BF-’horror’ story of leaking milk into a food buffet…bent over to reach something and dripped into the tomatoes. She was mortified, but I LOVED the story because it reassured me that God blessed us with bodies that can abundently feed our babies …and in some cases those behind us in the buffet line!
I, too, like to share how awesome my homebirth was if given the chance. It’s so bizarre to people to hear someone say they ENJOYED their birth, and to even use the word “awesome” to describe it! I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone say that IRL about their own birth. It’s usually “OMG it sucked so bad and was so awful and this and this and this happened.” I think it’s important for people to know that it IS possible to have an “awesome” birth.
i do get that moms with “bad” births need to share their stories as much as moms with “good” stories need to share theirs. what i guess i don’t get is… how come so many horror stories? in fact i found it odd to hear a story that wasn’t horror like. it is almost a battle to see who just barely survived child birth. when you hear a good one, it seems to be followed by a “i was lucky” instead of that actually being the norm.
ahh maybe it is just me.
heather in maine
Amy, sorry for your loss. You’ve made even your first one, while so very sad, a beautiful birth story. I think we can do THAT. And YES, we need more beautiful stories — Heather Hawks has a great point… especially marriage stories (so tired of “friends” getting together to trash their partners instead of supporting each others’ commitments). Sometimes commiserating just doesn’t help.
I do think that negative experiences, especially where there is injustice involved, need to be told over and over so that those who experienced it can work through it and determine exactly how they want that history “written,” and so that their voice is heard in a way that creates positive change. But telling pregnant women horror stories might not be the best way toward positive change. When Someone brings up their pregnancy to me, I tell them that I LOVED LOVED LOVED giving birth and it is one of the most wonderful experiences in my life. If it is a first pregnancy, their eyes bug out and they say something like, “NO ONE has ever described giving birth that way!” And reference the collection of horror stories they’ve gotten since starting to show. That is NOT the way to build a woman up for that experience of a lifetime. While I was pregnant, I worked with a woman who said she loved being pregnant and missed having babies. She told me, “don’t listen to people who tell you labor is awful. I loved it.” My mother pretty much told me the same thing. They set me up to be strong and see the joy in it all.
I sometimes walk myself right into the bad parts though. Here’s how the conversation went a couple times: I’ll be going on and on about how wonderful it all is and then the pregnant lady asks, “Did you do it without any drugs?” I say, “Mostly. No epidural or anything.” They ask what I did have (like their trying to figure out what drugs they will want to order or something; lol). So then I say, “The nurse insisted on giving me a shot of phenergan to make me stop puking between every contraction.” And oops.. I’m scaring the poor pregnant girl. So I try to back peddle saying, “but it was not big deal! I didn’t even care that I was puking because I was having such a great time!!” They’ve got to think I’m a total liar now and then I say, “But the medicine worked and I stopped throwing up. It made me a little drowsy but that’s all. I felt like taking a nap instead of pushing.” But then I’d want to say that I do NOT recommend phenergan because it can interfere with respiration and my baby came out not breathing right at first.. But then I’ll go and scare them again!!
The baby started breathing properly before the placenta was even out, by the way, and is now a strong, smart, beautiful, and (finally) polite, almost-five-year-old girl now.
When I talk about my second daughter’s birth, I always make sure to emphasize that, although it was a seven-weeks-early-feetfirst-breech birth, it was great! The big thing was that the staff did everything to make me feel comfortable, safe, and cared for. They also took great pains to reassure me that they would take good care of my baby as soon as she was born. I was scared because everything was catty-wampus, but it was still not bad because I was in control. And she is now a beautiful, healthy, still tiny, nearly-one-year-old.
Mama!!! Please draw up a comic on this mess. I can’t believe that the police are really going to give this mother 180 days in jail or a whopping $1800 fine!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29441846/
“I sometimes walk myself right into the bad parts though.”
Ah yes.. it IS hard to retell a powerful experience honestly without it scaring someone. I like to tell people to avoid pethidine at all costs, because there’s nothing quite like being so cold and shaky that you’re GLAD to lie in the warmth of your own vomit to remind you that unnecessary interventions are a bad idea. It was my own informed choice, so I had to live with it. If I mention it now, I tend to say it in terms of “I made the mistake of having pethidine with my first. I wish someone had told me that at the moment where you think you couldn’t cope if the pain got any worse – it doesn’t!”.
My mother told me how she had an orgasm delivering my brother, so rather than being afraid of giving birth I think I was thinking the whole way through my pregnancy “Please God, don’t let me enjoy it THAT much!”
When I was pregnant the first time, every woman I knew shared her labor stories, and none of them made me feel warm and fuzzy! I guess they just wanted to make sure I was prepared for how bad it could be, but I just wanted them to stop scaring me! The second time I didn’t get as many stories.
Both times I gave birth, I experienced horrible pain – but I don’t tell pregnant women how much it hurt. Every labor is different. I was induced both times and I am 100% sure that contributed to the amount of pain.
I only share things that I think are helpful!
I developed a radar for nasty birth stories during my 2nd pregnancy, a planned UC. The moment any negativity started coming up, which was surprisingly often, I simply dashed for my toddler and became absorbed in some “need” she suddenly had which required all my attention! I managed to skip the negativity entirely, which helped; I believe in the Law of Attraction and focusing on what we want, which was, in my case, a beautiful and peaceful birth to a healthy child. Yes, women should be able to share their stories, but there are other opportunities for that. Now, I listen and, if possible, help.
Natasha, I’m as supportive of breastfeeding as anyone here, but that mother was putting her child’s life on the line. That should NOT go unpunished! If you need to breastfeed your baby in the car, PULL OVER–unless you’re not the one driving, then you can lean over the carseat and nurse without taking the baby out of the carseat. But NEVER NEVER NEVER take your baby out of the carseat when the car is moving, especially if you’re driving. AND talking on the cell phone on top of it. Yikes. Just yikes!
Well, everyone knows the good things about birth. Everyone knows it wonderful when you hold the baby, how beautiful those firstfew moments are… so we don’t talk about it, because well, duh, a pregnant woman KNOWS that, and you’re gonna bore her. So all that’s left is what made your birth unique– which is not the beauty of producing life, but rather the pain and suffering you endured, and any complications you had (well, unless you had a unusually good birth, then there’s plenty to share). Let’s face it, the uniquely good aspects of birth can’t really be described– how can anyone describe the wonder that is looking into your baby’s eyes?– so you can either just say “congratulations!” or you can tell them the bad aspects. Besides, that way if something similar happens to them– which, for normal “it hurts like hell, you’re in agony” or “I threw up all the time” stories is likely– they will be able to think, well, this is bearable, I can get through this. Especially if they know how to plan for it.
Strangers should say congratulations and leave it at that, of course. And the really horrible, really rare stories should not be told. It’s one thing to tell a woman about x common complication and how she can prevent it, it’s another to scare her with things that won’t happen to her anyway.
regarding natasha and jessica’s post: i believe this to be a free country and would like to keep it that way. i do not believe this comparable to a drunk driver like implied by comments on the news website. so tired of “the law” and government butting in. will it ever stop!!!??? *sigh* so disappointing… (in our system not the mother!)
I was a little surprised that when I shared my recent positive birth story of my first child (birthing center, 3 hours, 10lbs of lovely daughter, no tears or crazy pain)people didn’t believe me or insisted that my positive experience giving birth was the exception and no woman should expect it. I really wish that when I was pregnant I had heard more positive from people other than my midwives. Being my first, I was really skeptical- now, after the fact I am so happy that I did not scare myself into a hospital birth.
Here is a happy thought for you! I love, love, love your blog and your comics. I will be sending great birthing energy your way.
I was lucky – I didn’t get a single scary birth story from anybody during my pregnancy. I got lots of funny looks for saying that I was going natural and not having any meds, but nobody tried to scare me out of it by telling horror stories. On the contrary when I did get a story it was always a positive, happy story where the mama got exactly the kind of birth she wanted.
I believe that Tara (I’m Buddhist) kept the negative people away – I pray to Tara every morning and one of the things I ask for is that all “obstructions and hindrances” be removed so that all “auspicious and happy” qualities can increase and develop.
Pregnancy rocked. And at 33w6d you’re well past the really horrid stuff and into the blissful stage where you can get out of anything you want by gesturing at your belly.
I go out of my way to try not to tell a currently pregnant woman my birth story. But to reply to several posters who simply suggest I share my good story….I don’t have one. My kid is great. But the birth story….well it was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. It was my reality and he will be our only child. My son and I nearly died from HELLP brought on my an undiagnosed clotting disorder.
I get that HELLP doesn’t happen every day. But it does happen. And it happens to women who are doing everything right. Who are in great shape. Who are eating right and caring for their pregnant bodies like temples.
It is my truth and it is the only one I have. I share it in the same way you share yours.
i tell anyone who will listen – pregnant or not – how much i loved pushing & how, even though there are a few things i might have changed about my son’s birth, it was extremely satisfying & empowering. i try to tell pregnant women that they look beautiful, give them compliments, and how wonderful birth will be. and they usually walk away happy and – i hope – a little more confident in their birthing capabilities.