“…celebrate ourselves for our courage to birth. The real question becomes not, ‘Have you done your breathing exercises?’ but rather, ‘Can you love yourself no matter how you birth, where you birth, or what the outcome?’” –Claudia Panuthos
by Trish Wilkinson
I have a badge of honor across my belly. It reminds me of the pride and power I felt when my oldest son Brennen was born. I felt the same pride and power when I had my second son, Sean, four years later as a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean).
Really, I didn’t know anything about birth when I had my sons almost 20 years ago. Sure, I had taken the classes, read “What to Expect”…, and totally ignored the sections about cesareans. Now that I’m a doula, my knowledge base has obviously increased through education and experience.
But even with what I know now, I don’t regret either one of my birth experiences. Would I try do things differently now that I know more of the journey of labor and birth? Of course I would.
But do I look back now and grieve for what did or didn’t happen … I really don’t.
I am so glad that women and their partners are empowering themselves with learning all they can about their birth journeys. However, I am concerned when I encounter people who are so invested in the way the baby comes out, that it becomes the focal point of the entire experience.
Professionally, I do believe that it would be ideal that every woman have an unmedicated, vaginal birth … it is optimal physically and emotionally for mommy and baby. However, it can’t and doesn’t always happen … and it pains me when I see how a woman can take that into herself … almost as a definition of who she is and how she “failed”.
As women, we need to support one another through word and deed when birth doesn’t go the way we planned.
It does not mean we are weak if the baby comes out the “up escalator” rather than the “down escalator”.
It does not mean we are not strong if we decide to use pain medication or have to be induced in order to have our babies.
It does not mean we are defective if we have to adopt or use a surrogate.
What it means is that we are mothers … women who are on a journey to perpetuate themselves through the love, nurturing, and care they show a child. And in order to fully demonstrate that love, don’t we first have to love ourselves, no matter how that child came into this world.
Because when all is said and done, won’t that self love have more of an impact on who that child becomes than how he or she got here?
Married for 24 years and the mother of two boys ages 18 and 14 (first born by unplanned cesarean; the second was a VBAC), Trish was a child and family therapist for 15 years before becoming a doula in 2001. She started Tree of Life Doula Services and Birth Resources in 2005 and has attended more than 250 births, including cesareans. She is a certified doula through Doulas of North America, as well as licensed clinical social worker for the state of Illinois.