The Beautiful Letdown

A breastfeeding blog that dabbles in tandem, extended nursing, gentle parenting and much more

Sharing pregnancy and birth stories

November10

Some­thing I noticed dur­ing my preg­nan­cies and after hav­ing my boys is that there are def­i­nitely a lot more hor­ror sto­ries float­ing around out there than there are low-drama, no prob­lem, happy to be preg­nant, great labor stories.

Why is it that “they” and some­times “we” feel the need to scare women who are not yet moms or who are preg­nant and have not yet had their babies? It’s not like scar­ing them makes our expe­ri­ences more valid. When I tell peo­ple that I had pretty great preg­nan­cies and very, very fast labors, peo­ple look at me like I’m crazy not to have had some hor­ri­ble expe­ri­ence. I just don’t know what comes of scar­ing some­one like that. It just seems mean.

posted under General, Pregnancy, birth story
3 Comments to

“Sharing pregnancy and birth stories”

  1. On November 11th, 2007 at 8:00 am Tera Says:

    I’ve noticed the same thing. So much so that I almost tend to feel guilty when shar­ing the sto­ries of my 3 great preg­nan­cies and births. Peo­ple don’t seem to believe that it’s pos­si­ble to actu­ally enjoy preg­nancy, let alone enjoy giv­ing birth.

  2. On November 11th, 2007 at 6:59 pm casey Says:

    I know what you mean. Some­times, I feel a bit guilty, too. I don’t think preg­nancy is some­thing you have to hate to be a good mom.

  3. On November 12th, 2007 at 10:46 am MomOnTheGo Says:

    I loved being preg­nant and had a rea­son­able birth expe­ri­ence of the sort that wasn’t what I planned but resulted in a healthy baby and the les­son that my plans weren’t going to be par­tic­u­larly impor­tant over the next few years. I did have an awful expe­ri­ence with neo-natal nurses who tried to con­vince me to give for­mula to my baby within hours of her birth. The lac­ta­tion con­sul­tant later said that my expe­ri­ence was a per­fect exam­ple of my moth­ers give up on breast­feed­ing but I had done my home­work and was stub­born. I don’t tell the whole saga, though, just that breast­feed­ing is nat­ural, just like sex, and both expe­ri­ences improve if you work through the rough spots. A lit­tle humour, a lit­tle advice and per­mis­sion for it not to be easy from the outset.