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The expectations of what a birth experience should be like—how it should not only deliver a child but also deliver a woman across some invisible threshold between nonmotherhood and motherhood—are mostly unrealistic, and yet they have serious staying power.
When I asked women in some of my various parenting circles about how they felt about their C-sections, it was clear I wasn’t alone in feeling I hadn’t managed to have a baby the “right” way.
Lauren, 36, said she’d had two C-sections, and “[nearly two years] after the second, I’m still not emotionally recovered. It’s almost impossible not to internalize expectations.”
Libby, 38, said, “I think most of the shame is self-inflicted. I think a lot of people take others’ individual commentary personally sometimes, but it’s just projection. For instance, I might say I felt disappointed that I had a C-section. Hypothetically, a person I’m speaking to also had a C-section and does not feel disappointed, but somehow feels attacked for not feeling disappointed that she did not have a natural birth. Does that make sense? I think it’s normal and all part of how a woman accepts and copes with the way her birth went amidst a slew of hormonal emotions postpartum. We all want to bond and relate to one another as mothers, but the reality is that while we are all women, we are all also individuals with different goals and expectations, personalities, and emotional temperaments.”
On the other hand, Kelly, 41, said, “I make a point of talking to people about this because I think the birth-plan culture is terrible and creates an unnecessary way for people to be disappointed.” (As I was finishing this piece, she emailed to say she’d just delivered her second baby—via a scheduled C-section.)
Then there was *Sarah, who said she actually felt “very positive” about her birth experience but did confess that she makes a habit of telling her birth story a bit differently. “I felt like I had to prep people by first telling them I had a C-section, because I assumed they were expecting a story that ended in a vaginal birth. I also always included that I labored for many hours and that the reason for the C-section was because the baby had a cord around his neck. It felt like if I just said I had a C-section, they might assume things about me that I didn't think were true of myself—that I was weak, that I gave up, that I did something wrong.
“I do think there is stigma around C-sections,” she added. “When the induction wasn't going well, I was worried this meant there was something wrong with my baby, that he was weak and couldn't tolerate the stress of labor. It also brought up the idea of ‘survival of the fittest.’ If I didn't have access to surgery, would my baby have made it? Then I think of all the medical inventions—antibiotics, asthma inhalers, surgery—that allow people to ‘make it.’ Most of us wouldn't be here without some medical intervention somewhere along our genetic line.”
This, in fact, is precisely correct. Having a C-section shouldn’t come laced with feelings of failure, any more than taking penicillin or getting your appendix removed. The truth is, the idea of success or failure at giving birth is just another way women internalize wildly unrealistic expectations—like “having it all” or “I woke up like this.” However you have a baby, you’re a winner.
*Name changed
