For those who had never come upon these terms. A C-section is a cesarean cut on your lower abdomen to bring out your baby. This is something most people do only if they fail to have an SVD due to; baby breech position, baby too big (the case with my first son), baby having complications etc. However it is very famous with the celebrities who are too posh to push. A term coined in the UK for people like Posh spice. :) Anyway an SVD stands for Spontaneous Vaginal Delivery. I am like, what??? duh... what is so spontaneous about hours of contractions which is ended only by heavy pushing.
Anyhoo, my verdict. Since I have had personal experience of both. Do the SVD. No matter how painful it is... it is still one of God's most amazing creations. I think sometimes God has a sick sense of humour or maybe balance. I am not sure. The pain of childbirth and the pleasure of having your baby in your arms. It is like having the highest mountain and the lowest valley wrapped in one moment in time. Having natural birth is really normal. Yet it is the most scary of all experiences which I still would not remove for all the gold in the world. Crazy huh. 28 hours of labourous contractions and I can still say that. Common I am not a superwoman. I was scared shit of the pain. I asked for an Epidural. Which was suppose to block the pain. It did that only for my right leg.
Aduhhhhhhh.... LOL dear Dr Anesthetist if u are reading this. I can tell you honestly I was cursing you for your half body job on me... however I do love you and won't mean you harm otherwise. I agree that my body is not the easiest to do an epidural on. Actually I am thankful that I still had feeling in my left side. This helped me push my son out. I heard that some pain is important to be able to tell when the right time to push is. I concur this fact from experience. I did do 3 pushes for every contraction I felt and after the 9th push My baby was out. You see God works in amazing ways. And yes I don't blame Dr Anesthetist. Because for all the pain I felt in the last 3 hours before childbirth. I had my leg go numb on me for almost 24 hours after childbirth. My right leg was practically rebellious to my command to move. So I was half an invalid for that length of time.
My experience of having a C-section was bad. I really did want an SVD with my first baby. However due to no cervical dilation, big baby problem and fetal distress I had to be cut open. Now I have a scar for both. One on my abdomen and the other down under. I got no fear of the loss of feeling or rubbish people go on about sex after natural delivery. I think that is for stupid people. If two people really love each other. Whatever feeling it is connected with love has nothing to do with lust. So if any husband's complain. Tell them to go to hell. Having a C-section is as painful as an SVD. It is just in different ways. With C-section the pain is after the child birth. It is painful to walk or to lift anything and it last for about a week or two if you are lucky. If you have proper help at home it would be easy. However if you are alone or have a no good husband who thinks you should be up and running then you are in for a shitty time. You can not lift anything heavy, in my case my heavy baby. You worry about your wound opening up. You have difficulty walking. You have difficulty sleeping. You have difficulty sitting. You have difficulty showering yourself. You have difficulty breastfeeding. Oh mio dio. I totally slagged off c-section. Well I am glad it did help me bear my first son but to do it again. I pray never.
Anyhoo, my verdict. Since I have had personal experience of both. Do the SVD. No matter how painful it is... it is still one of God's most amazing creations. I think sometimes God has a sick sense of humour or maybe balance. I am not sure. The pain of childbirth and the pleasure of having your baby in your arms. It is like having the highest mountain and the lowest valley wrapped in one moment in time. Having natural birth is really normal. Yet it is the most scary of all experiences which I still would not remove for all the gold in the world. Crazy huh. 28 hours of labourous contractions and I can still say that. Common I am not a superwoman. I was scared shit of the pain. I asked for an Epidural. Which was suppose to block the pain. It did that only for my right leg.
Aduhhhhhhh.... LOL dear Dr Anesthetist if u are reading this. I can tell you honestly I was cursing you for your half body job on me... however I do love you and won't mean you harm otherwise. I agree that my body is not the easiest to do an epidural on. Actually I am thankful that I still had feeling in my left side. This helped me push my son out. I heard that some pain is important to be able to tell when the right time to push is. I concur this fact from experience. I did do 3 pushes for every contraction I felt and after the 9th push My baby was out. You see God works in amazing ways. And yes I don't blame Dr Anesthetist. Because for all the pain I felt in the last 3 hours before childbirth. I had my leg go numb on me for almost 24 hours after childbirth. My right leg was practically rebellious to my command to move. So I was half an invalid for that length of time.
My experience of having a C-section was bad. I really did want an SVD with my first baby. However due to no cervical dilation, big baby problem and fetal distress I had to be cut open. Now I have a scar for both. One on my abdomen and the other down under. I got no fear of the loss of feeling or rubbish people go on about sex after natural delivery. I think that is for stupid people. If two people really love each other. Whatever feeling it is connected with love has nothing to do with lust. So if any husband's complain. Tell them to go to hell. Having a C-section is as painful as an SVD. It is just in different ways. With C-section the pain is after the child birth. It is painful to walk or to lift anything and it last for about a week or two if you are lucky. If you have proper help at home it would be easy. However if you are alone or have a no good husband who thinks you should be up and running then you are in for a shitty time. You can not lift anything heavy, in my case my heavy baby. You worry about your wound opening up. You have difficulty walking. You have difficulty sleeping. You have difficulty sitting. You have difficulty showering yourself. You have difficulty breastfeeding. Oh mio dio. I totally slagged off c-section. Well I am glad it did help me bear my first son but to do it again. I pray never.
Comments
take care dear!
* birth happens without a woman being given drugs, gels, enemas etc to get a her into an articial labour (which increases the chances of her needing an epidural because she is unable to bear the intense pain so early on and without the assistance of her own pain relieving hormones - and the intensity of the contractions incrases the risks of a baby going into fetal distress because contractions are not meant to be that strong early on in labour.
* without drugs to augment her labour (that is keeping it happening by inserting a drip into her arm and pumping her full of articial oxytocins)
* without being cut open for the sake of an episiotomy
* without being forced onto her back to work against gravity and ensuring that she doesn't get the extra 33% expansion in her sacral area.
* without being observed, interrupted and subjected to questions and invasive procedures that bring her out of her primal birth space.
I was blessed to be able to birth my son, at home, which protected me from all manner of useless, but routine medical interventions. He was a spontaneous vaginal birth - including which included the foetal ejection response - which is most definitely spontaneous!
I'm very glad that you are able to be vocal about your different experiences and continue to advocate for vaginal birth over a caesarean. Having been born in the 70's by Caesarean (after a bothed induction) I'm passionate about women being able to have a say in how, where and with whom they birth.
And you mention about sex after birth (go girl for actually including that - so many women refuse to talk at all about sex after birth) is a huge challenge for lots of women and men. There are lots of women who do suffer from a loss of feeling in that area because of nerve damage from episiotomies, and others who have damage from caesareans that has caused a loss of feeling in that area. And I know myself, from having a third degree tear - I was in lots of pain and wasn't ready to jump back into sex with my partner until my son was four months old.
Congratulations on sharing your experiences.
Reclaim Sex After Birth: a surival guide for couples
http://www.reclaimsexafterbirth.com
however jodi.. svd was not really svd... I was 11 days overdue when I had my son. I had to be artificially induced with pitosine pill first then the dreaded drip..
Believe me I hate all those things.. It was not natural but the help we have here is quite procedural and requires to stick to strict rules. So I can't really claim it was all that spontaneous. I have strong ideas like you but since I had complications with my first baby I dare not argue. So I went along with all the what nots of the hospital rules.
I would have loved to give birth au naturale all the way. The way my grandmothers did it. All the same, my experience was still horrendously painful and pleasurable as it should be. :)