Women Today: Total Wimps December 14, 2011 Jill I would bet $5 that STFU, Parents is 50% loved around these parts and 50% hated, but this post was too good not to link. I think we can all agree that this lady is the worst, right?
I’m a mother (and probably guilty of annoying a few friends with Facebook status updates, though I try not to do too much), but I love STFU, Parents. And yeah, that lady’s a little unhinged.
Kristen from MA: I guess a woman who needs a C-section should just bite a bullet? Along with a shot of whiskey, what more does anyone need? In fact, who needs a surgeon? A real woman would do the surgery on herself.
The fuck?! Yeah, I guess I’m also a wimp for asking for an epidural when it was either that or not getting the rest and most likely having to get an emergency C-section later. Seeing as I blacked out from exhaustion during labour. Yep, total Brave Sir Robin. When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely got an epidural. True story.
I can’t even piece together the logic that leads someone to conclude that women put their kids in daycare because they haven’t bonded with them because they had pain mediation during labor and delivery. I mean, every step of that logical chain is utterly absurd even before you consider that the entire thing is predicated on the notion that all women have a choice about putting kids in daycare.
I can’t even piece together the logic that leads someone to conclude that women put their kids in daycare because they haven’t bonded with them because they had pain mediation during labor and delivery. I mean, every step of that logical chain is utterly absurd even before you consider that the entire thing is predicated on the notion that all women have a choice about putting kids in daycare. Not to mention the idea that mothers, not fathers, are responsible for the care of children. Eesh.
Labor pain does build character. It builds really, really irritable character that would pull off a few heads if that would get the baby out quicker.
You know, if she really wanted women to use less medication during labor and delivery, she could work on encouraging more doctors to allow women to move around and respect their choices during labor. Laboring on your back is one of the more painful positions for many women, but many OBs and nurses insist upon it. Walking around in labor or laboring in a tub of water help many women, but many doctors don’t allow that. It would be much more effective to push for things like that. As for daycare, I’m a work at home mom, but I don’t expect all women to want that option or to want to be stay at home moms with no job or business. Not all women want it, not all situations allow it. I went to daycare throughout elementary school, and it wasn’t a problem for me or my sisters. It merely was. We got to play with lots of kids, so it was even fun. No harm to our family bond or anything like that, and if I ever put my kids in daycare, I know it won’t be hurting them either.
I dont know if Kiran is a man or a woman but yeah, the worst. I am incrediby grateful for an epidural! I couldnt give birth naturally it wasnt a physical possibility for me but I labored anyway for two days before an emergency c-section was necessary. Besides, labor huts why woudl anyone have to endure pain to do something when they can have pain releif and still accomplish the task?
Kristen from MA: I guess a woman who needs a C-section should just bite a bullet? Look, if she were a REAL WOMAN of CHARACTER who LOVED HER CHILDREN, she wouldn’t NEED a c-section, because her uterus and vagina wouldn’t be so WIMPY that they couldn’t push out her baby. SUFFER, WOMEN! SUFFER!
“Besides, labor huts why woudl anyone have to endure pain to do something when they can have pain releif and still accomplish the task?” As someone who attempted a homebirth, wound up with a totally necessary but very definitely non-emergency c-section, and who is currently planning another homebirth, the long and short of it is that there are undeniable benefits to natural labor that have nothing to do with building character from enduring pain. Birth is a complex physiological process that, for the most part, does work. In a supportive environment, physiological (natural) labor provides all sorts of fun hormones that make it bearable. Seriously, natural labor makes you high and it’s just neat, though painful, but it’s not a wrong pain. It’s hard to explain to those who haven’t been there. Keeping in mind that all the following are generalizations assuming a normal pregnancy and birth, women and babies fare better in natural labor than in medicated labor. Every single intervention carries with it risk for complications, and often result in even more interventions with more risk for more complications. I could do a basic rundown but this information is readily googleable. Also, a lot of women don’t want to spend hours immobile in a bed strapped to machines, especially while someone is playing with your perineum. Personally, my experience with natural labor (if not natural birth) was one of the most important in my life and I really can’t wait to do it again. There’s something indescribably empowering about learning to work with your body that way. I get not everyone wants that, but there are plenty out there who do.
Kristen from MA: IguessawomanwhoneedsaC-sectionshouldjustbiteabullet? She never said anything about people NEEDING C sectons. she was talking about all the drugs we can take to get through childbirth. If your not fit to have a kid normally and someone critisizes you for having a C section then fuck them. But that lady didn’t.
Ashley, I wasn’t quesitoning why someone would *choose* a medicine-free birth, I questioned why they would HAVE to have a medcine free birth when there is pain relief available. Kiran is saying women who get pain relief are wimps and women who get pain relief put their babies in daycare, (and Kiran insinuates that daycare is this horrible thing for children) because the absence of pain during labor makes for the absence of the necessary bonding between mother and child.
What? Dumping my kid in daycare makes me a wimp? WTF? That doesn’t even make sense! Fuck you–I have to pay for dinner and make it too! Who’s the wimp now motherfucker?!
Fairz enough. I’ve seen plenty of statements along the lines of “omg why would you want to go through all that pain! There are drugs!!!”
I am convinced my one shot of Stadol prevented me from needing further medical intervention in my 24 hour labor and four hours of pushing. Epilepsy meant I had to use Labor and Delivery, the hospital wouldn’t allow me to use a birthing room. And when my water broke and there was meconium in it after twelve hours of labor and they said I would now need a fetal monitor, I lost my breathing rhythm, my cool and took the shot. Because I was able to rest–so much between contractions that I had no idea that my support personnel ordered and ate a pizza and I was completely unaware of this–(I would have KILLED them had I known, because hospital regs only allowed us ice chips and I resented that policy so, so much) I was able to continue on and didn’t have any further intervention. So this Kiran person can fuck right off. Stadol, it rocks.
Seriously, natural labor makes you high and it’s just neat, though painful, but it’s not a wrong pain. It’s hard to explain to those who haven’t been there. This is one of those speak for yourself moments. Been there, NOT like that.
yeah seriously, speak for yourself. Labor (at home, for your information, self-righteous homebirther crowd) was the absolute worst, most traumatizing thing ever.
Ashley: Seriously, natural labor makes you high and it’s just neat, though painful, but it’s not a wrong pain. It’s hard to explain to those who haven’t been there. From what those who have been there have told me, this varies wildly from woman to woman and birth to birth, and there is no reason to refuse medical pain relief to a woman who wants it.
My mother was in labor for forty hours with me. Forty. I would love to see someone try to tell her that women should never use drugs during childbirth. (For the record, about 27% of my heart is reserved for my love for STFU parents).
I would also like to add that I was recently in the hospital for a couple weeks, with a series of chest tubes culminating in one big surgery. I took as many pain killers as they would give me. I got an epidural for the final surgery, followed by one of those buttons that you push to release morphine. I’m surprised I didn’t break the thing with how frequently I pushed it. If my vagina had felt anything like the rest of my felt, I would have snapped like a dry twig.
Oh, and I will add one more thing about my whole birthing experience: I am never, ever doing it again. The pregnancy was fine, the whole birthing aspect of it was traumatic enough that it was easy for me to decide that I never wanted to do it again. So this whole happy healthy pain crap…yeah no. Contractions feel like menstrual cramps, only more so, and those aren’t fun either.
Unfortunately some folks seem to think if things are hard for them they should be hard for everyone. And we can be very judgemental of each other. Reminds me of a horror story a friend told me about her mother giving birth in Mombassa. When she cried with labour pains a nurse actually hit her and said “why cry? bet you weren’t crying when it got in there, and now you’re crying when it comes out!”. Interestingly I have also heard of midwives who stereotype women of different cultures’ tolerence of pain, and assume women of certain cultures are ‘just making a fuss’ rather than genuinely in agony. Yes pain is natural, but why is labour pain somehow more natural than other pain – some f-ed up rite of passage rather than something to be managed and alleviated?!
OK, so I usually don’t do this but I am totally going to play my “33 hours of back labor followed by an emergency c-section” card. My totally easy, healthy pregnancy ended in a really nightmarish labor and delivery, and I will *never* apologize for seeking relief from that pain. A friend of a friend of mine actually suffered from PTSD after her son was born – her labor process was so painful. I’m all about offering women choices for their childbirth experience, and hope that someday women will no longer feel the need to judge one another’s choices. This shit is hard enough already. That woman at STFU Parents (love it, BTW!) is an unmitigated asshole. And yeah, my daughter is in daycare. It’s definitely because I don’t feel bonded with her due to OMG epidural! and not at all because my husband and I both have to work full-time jobs just to pay our mortgage and keep our health insurance. Bleargh.
I can honestly say I have never met with more resistance then when I decided early in the pregnancy to have a scheduled c-section. I am in overall great physical health, the pregnancy was uneventful, ect. I chose to not go through labor because I have Bipolar I Disorder and I really did not want the stress, fear or anxiety of labor (all things that could very well trigger an episode or symptoms). I wanted a birth experience that was planned, controlled and calm – and to me, a c-section was the best way for me to get that stuff. The whole natural vs. medicated birth arguments set me on edge, because it sets up natural birth as the ideal standard and if a woman does not achieve it, she has either “failed” or she is “defective” in a way that prevented her from achieving the ideal. The ideal birth should not be based upon any method of birth, standard of pain management or medical process – it should be based on the respect the mother gets, whether she is freely deciding to birth how she wants and whether she is satisfied with the experience.
insomniac: Unfortunatelysomefolksseemtothinkifthingsarehardforthemtheyshouldbehardforeveryone.Andwecanbeveryjudgementalofeachother.RemindsmeofahorrorstoryafriendtoldmeabouthermothergivingbirthinMombassa.Whenshecriedwithlabourpainsanurseactuallyhitherandsaid“whycry?betyouweren’tcryingwhenitgotinthere,andnowyou’recryingwhenitcomesout!”.InterestinglyIhavealsoheardofmidwiveswhostereotypewomenofdifferentcultures’tolerenceofpain,andassumewomenofcertainculturesare‘justmakingafuss’ratherthangenuinelyinagony.Yespainisnatural,butwhyislabourpainsomehowmorenaturalthanotherpain–somef-edupriteofpassageratherthansomethingtobemanagedandalleviated?! Exactly. I am not aware of any other medical scenario other than birth where anyone would argue that it is acceptable to deny pain relief to a patient who is requesting it (and before anybody shows up with the “birth isn’t a medical process!” line, yeah, I know – but many women choose to involve medicine in their birth, and are better off for it, so let’s leave it at that). When I was young and my adult teeth were pushing through and my gums hurt like hell, nobody said to me “oh, you have to work through it – its a good pain!” No, we got the Oragel and numbed my mouth. The pain is natural argument goes all the way back to the Curse of Eve, which basically holds that the pain of childbirth is woman’s punishment for The Fall. Anybody who argues that women are meant to endure the pain is making the same argument that a lot of misogynists and fundamentalists made for a long time – except this time it’s under the guise of empowerment.
You know, I tried really hard to make it clear that this was my experience, that my experience is backed up by the medical literature (it is well documented that natural labor releases endorphins that make it quite bearable in the right situation and that either pitocin or pain medication interrupts that), and to at NO POINT even suggest that someone who chooses medical intervention is making a wrong choice. Yes, it’s one that inherently increases risk of complication, but that doesn’t mean it’s invalid or not even remotely the best choice for that person at that point. This Kiran person is a complete asshole, but as this thread shows there’s this really obnoxious paradigm of birth where you can either choose to be drugged into immobility or to suffer under the worst pain in existence, and frankly that’s not at all inherent in birth. I was answering the question why someone would choose natural birth. I can’t imagine why someone would have a problem with that. Well, I can, but this “self-righteous homebirther” won’t make snarky judgments here.
Ashley: I think the reason why perhaps your comment was not well received is because you start out by saying that you are speaking only for yourself. But then, you say, “this was my experience, that my experience is backed up by the medical literature (it is well documented that natural labor releases endorphins that make it quite bearable in the right situation and that either pitocin or pain medication interrupts that).” Well, your saying, “this is my experience, and the medical literature shows that my experience is the correct or normal or expected one and labor pain should be totally bearable if your doing it right.” And, well, no. Some women have natural labor that is excruciating – my mother did. Her labor with my last sister was natural, but so painful and so intense that immediately after the birth, she refused to hold the baby because she associated her with terrible pain and suffering. It took her a few days to really bond with my sister. How is that a good birth? And my mother did ask for pain relief – but she had birth attendants who kept using the “five more minutes” gambit to try to convince her she didn’t need drugs. That’s an example of a birth that would have probably been better with some kind of medication. And I understand medical literature, but I also understand that the medical literature can fall short in areas. Generally, the medical literature does not consider a lot of the reasons why women choose medicated birth or other interventions. Psychological fear, past trauma, mental health needs, ect. – a variety of things can play a role in a woman’s birth choices. And honestly, I don’t think there is any blanket statement that can be made about the process. And honestly? You and I can have very different definitions of what is bearable. I’m a competitive MMA fighter, martial arts practitioner, tattoo enthusiaist, and Braxton-Hicks contractions were the worst thing I have ever felt. Like, literally. I have a friend who is afraid to get a needle at the doctor’s office but said that labor felt no worse than a menstrual period. Honestly? I think any blanket judgment about what is bearable and what is not is overreaching to an absurd degree.
Drahill: The ideal birth should not be based upon any method of birth, standard of pain management or medical process – it should be based on the respect the mother gets, whether she is freely deciding to birth how she wants and whether she is satisfied with the experience. Quoted because this bears repeating as often as possible.
also, to add to this, it bothers me the way “labor pain” is this catchall phrase that covers all the different sources of pain a woman may feel while laboring. i’m a yogini and fairly well attuned to the different muscles and muscle groups in my body. i labored for hours just fine, and all the work that my pelvic muscles were doing to dilate my cervix was okay – painful but in a stretchy way that i could breathe through. then my latissimus muscle (the broad muscle across my middle and upper back) spasmed, and by that i mean “locked right up” and guess what, i couldn’t breathe. not ‘forgot to breathe’ or ‘couldn’t think about breathing because of the pain’ but, no, i mean couldn’t breathe. as in i was trying and my lungs couldn’t expand against the brick wall that my back muscle had become. epidural, please. (btw, having an epidural didn’t mean i was drugged into immobility either – i was still able to push even with the spinal block. again, i credit the yoga.) anyway, larger point is that “labor pain” is kind of a meaningless statement because there can be many different causes of the various pain that is being felt, and (duh!) different labors are going to manifest differently in various muscle groups.
trishka: having an epidural didn’t mean i was drugged into immobility either – i was still able to push even with the spinal block. So was my best friend. The epidural didn’t numb away all sensation for her; it just made it so she was not writing in uncontrollable agony.
The more things change, etc. On the subway to work just this morning, by coincidence, I came across the following passage in a book I’m reading, Hans Fallada’s Little Man, What Now? (Kleiner Mann – was nun?), published in 1932 on the eve of the Nazis’ coming to power; the basic subject is one couple (a young woman and her barely-employed husband, a low-level white collar worker) trying to live their lives in the midst of economic and political crisis. The setting is a group of new fathers outside a maternity ward in a Berlin hospital, waiting to take their wives and babies home. The author makes fun of a viewpoint expressed by one of those fathers that’s quite similar to that of “Kiran”: “It’s a good thing I’ve got my mother-in-law at home just now. She’ll do all the work for my wife,” said one man. “We’ve got a maid. A woman can’t do it all, with a tiny baby, and so soon after giving birth.” “Permit me to disagree,” said a man with glasses, emphatically. “It’s nothing for a healthy woman to give birth. It’s good for her. I said to my wife: of course I could get you some help, but it would only make you sluggish. You’ll get better quicker, the more you have to do.” “I’m not sure . . .,” said another, hesitantly. “No question! No question!” insisted the spectacle-wearer. “I’ve heard that in the country they have children and then go straight out and harvest hay the next day. Any other way just makes them soft. I’m very against these hospitals. My wife’s been here nine days and the doctors still didn’t want to let her go. ‘I beg your pardon, Doctor,’ I said. ‘She’s my wife, and I decide. How do you think my Germanic ancestors treated their women?’ He went as red as a beetroot! You can be sure his ancestors weren’t Germanic.'” And so on.
Drahill: I am not aware of any other medical scenario other than birth where anyone would argue that it is acceptable to deny pain relief to a patient who is requesting it Actually, there’s quite a few such scenarios, given how freaked out people are about narcotics.
BalancingJane: I’mamother(andprobablyguiltyofannoyingafewfriendswithFacebookstatusupdates,thoughItrynottodotoomuch),butIloveSTFU,Parents. Andyeah,thatlady’salittleunhinged. This gave me hope for humanity.