But Birth IS Beautiful

I've come to the conclusion that not everyone sees birth as a beautiful thing. Some of my friends simply see it as an ends to a means. You have sex, you get pregnant, yada yada yada...you have a newborn in your arms.
Its really hard for me to relate to them because after Sophie's birth, I understood there was a better way to have a baby. I hated that birth experience & had a plan for a natural better birth with Maddy, which we know was foiled by my sudden, severe preeclampsia & resulted in my traumatizing emergency csection (that I still get panic attacks from). I was thankful we were both healthy & alive, but at the same time, I knew we should be trusting your body to work as God designed it too. I felt robbed. I was bitter & in mourning for the birth I never got to try.

So Noah's birth was incredibly empowering for me. My body started labor on its own, it remained strong throughout pregnancy & delivery & proved everyone wrong. It allowed me to regain control of my births & my body. I regained the image of myself as a strong woman & mother. I also showed the high risk doctor that I can think for myself when I didn't schedule a repeat csection at 39 weeks exactly, per his advice. Doctors aren't always right & frankly, most of them I don't trust enough to make decisions for me like that. Good thing I don't, or I'd have 2 csections by now.

But throughout that pregnancy, I fought hard every step of the way to have the best, most relevant, strong information at my fingertips to make an informed decision for our care. I spent countless hours on message boards, finding research studies, reading articles, talking to medical personal and sharing what I learned with others along the way. I turned my husband into a vbac advocate, so much so that he gets angry when he sees friends of his eagerly schedule an induction or repeat csection, when we know that its unnecessary. (Yes, there are some medically necessary times for them, but not in these instances--like wanting baby to have a "cute birthday" or "if I have my baby on X day at 38 weeks, I'll be able to start training again in time for the marathon" <---both exact examples of people we know). I also share all of these articles & knowledge on my facebook page. It makes some of my friends cheer in support & others eager to jump down my throat in protest. They are happy listening to a doctor as their only form of information & refuse to acknowledge that there may be something better out there. They get offended that I post these things, but it won't make me stop. If I piss them off & get unfriended, that's the price to pay for spreading knowledge & possibly helping them or someone they know.

These "friends" don't see how beautiful & powerful birth can be. They don't understand that having an empowering birth comes from being confident in your choices & that can affect your life in other areas without you knowing it. They don't see how amazing the human body is to have all of these tiny intricate details line up to have a proper birth. How God figured out the tiniest details to keep us alive & multiplying. It is truly awesome & I adore talking about, thinking about, learning about & seeing birth. Just incredible.

In the same way, these same people don't see breastfeeding as beautiful either. They don't understand that breastfeeding is much more than just making milk for your baby. There's the bonding, the hormones, the amazing things your body goes through to nourish & continue to take care of your baby once its on the outside. So incredible.

Its just hard to relate to those naysayers when I post an article about birthing & they attack me with "csections are great" & "I can't wait to induce" or I post about breastfeeding and I get "formula is just as good" & "breastfeeding is gross".

No its not. Birthing & feeding as God intended is the best in almost every circumstance (said as a woman who fed formula, breastmilk & donor milk AND had an induction, a csection & a VBAC--I think I'm pretty well versed). I want the best for my children, not 4th best or something that's "good enough". I don't want to subconsciously teach them that its ok to quit something just because it's not "instantly easy" or think that something artificially made like formula even comes close to the awesome power of breast milk. For example: my grandma breastfed 4/6 of her babies. The 2 that drank formula are my mom (who has so many health problems her entire life, not to mention the breast cancer she is still receiving treatments for & the poor thing is allergic to so many things/meds) & my uncle who has survived multiple heart attacks, life threatening illnesses, and lots of health issues that prevent him from even lifting his kids. Hmmm. The rest of my aunts & uncles are aging normally, with usual or no health worries. So yeah, you CANNOT tell me that formula is "just as good" as breastmilk.

Ugh. I wish everyone just thought like I do. Hehe. I try very hard to just ignore those ignorant comments, but they sometimes really get to me.

But no matter what, I do believe that informed birth is beautiful. Breastfeeding is beautiful. No, I will not change my mind about that, but I do hope to open yours. ;o)