Viewpoints

One popular blogger is expecting a baby very soon, and is having a planned c-section. She asked that people don't post comments with horror stories about c-sections. She doesn't want to hear anything negative, and wrote:

"I'm sure someone somewhere has done a study on the phenomenon I like to call "let's scare the crap out of the poor pregnant girl who doesn't know what she's gotten into but because I've done this at least one time I have all the answers to every question about pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, etc and know EXACTLY the RIGHT THING this poor pregnant girl should do if she loves her baby just a little bit." Have you had any experience with this?"

I thought it was funny at first. And put that way, I do still think it's funny. But I view things differently. I don't know if it's got anything to do with being Canadian, or what, but women never told me horror stories, or gave me unsolicited advice (except for the Italian nona in the greenhouse who said Huey should have a hat on...in June....it was 30C outside the greenhouse...). I NEVER had any backlash or comments about breastfeeding in public either. On line, especially in parenting groups, we share birth stories, and quite often offer unsolicited advice though. But I've never thought of it as a horror story to scare the uninitiated pregnant lady. I view it as that person's story of an important event. I hear they might have unresolved issues, I hear they want to share their experience, perhaps to enlighten me, perhaps to save me from what they went through. And I APPRECIATE everything anyone has ever told me---even if it was a little scary from their view. If my baby was breech, I would be THRILLED to have someone point out the Spinning Babies website to me. If I was going to be induced with Cytotec, I'd be ecstatic if someone told me that it's not approved for use as an induction drug. If I mentioned I had trouble latching my newborn on when my milk came in, I'd have kissed the person who told me about Medela nipple shields. If I planned a c-section before my due date, and someone mentions that it might short-change my hormone system and breastfeeding might have a rocky start, I'd start calling around for LCs and talk to my OB. If these bits of advice came because someone else had a 'horror story', I don't really care--it's not an omen of my experience. It's not casting a shadow on my experience---if anything, I will be more prepared, more educated. And what's wrong with that?

I think it's doing yourself a disservice to ask for only positive comments about something so serious as a surgery. In this case, it's not just a birth; it's a major abdominal surgery with complications possible for baby and mother. Yes, it might be preferred to a vaginal birth in many circumstances, but to get mad because someone mentions that THEY had XYZ happen and they just want to share that so others might be more aware, or because someone shares a website about how to turn a breech baby?
Man, if I hadn't seen photos of breast reductions with incisions that had opened and other complications, I would have been a nutcase when it happened to me.

I wasn't scared BECAUSE others had shared their stories. They weren't horror stories, they were actually lifesaving stories.