What would you think of a woman who wrote the following:
“The morning after the wedding, I was alone with my new husband and all I could do was cry. I never thought the words trauma would come out of my mouth and be associated to my wedding but that was what I felt. I felt traumatised. Its horrible saying that because you feel like you should be grateful for this wonderful man you married. And I totally am grateful for him, but it’s 3 weeks later now but I still feel like I wish we weren’t married so we could start all over again, to try for a different wedding under different circumstances.”
What went wrong?
The bride had planned an outdoor wedding on a beautiful mountain top. She excitedly hired a tent and caterer and planned that guests would take the tram to the top.
On the day of the wedding disaster struck. No not the hurricane itself or the fact that it occurred smack in the middle of hurricane season, but the caterer who refused to work on a mountain top in a hurricane, the tent owner who insisted that the high winds would damage the tent and the tram operator who never showed up just because the wind was so high that the tram could not be used. She was forced to get married not on the lovely, sunny mountain top as she had planned, but in the spacious ballroom of the lodge. Yes the ceremony was exactly the same, the food was delicious and the guests were thrilled, but that doesn’t matter. The wedding was ruined and now she wishes she could have a do-over.
What would we think of such a woman? Most of us would probably think she was a spoiled and immature woman who made unrealistic plans for an outdoor wedding during hurricane season, who fixated on the venue and not the marriage, and who was ruining the honeymoon for herself and her husband because she could not let go of her unrealistic expectations and insisted on dwelling on her disappointment instead of enjoying her marriage.
We rarely hear such stories about weddings, but in the NCB and homebirth communities, stories of dashed unrealistic expectations among privileged women are par for the course. Consider the following on which the above example is based ([DRUG FREE] Daley Brae’s Birth *Long – Contains Birth Disappointment/Trauma*):
There is so much disappointment tied to this birth experience for me. The next morning I was alone with him and all I could do was cry. I never thought the words trauma would come out of my mouth and be associated to my own birth experience but that was what I felt. I felt traumatised. Its horrible saying that because you feel like you should be grateful for this beautiful little person you’ve been gifted with. And I totally am grateful for him – he has my heart and is such a beautiful little boy. Its 3 weeks later now but I still feel like I wish he was back inside me so we could start all over again, to try for a different birth under different circumstances.
What happened?
She had chosen an unassisted homebirth and “a physiological third stage this time, despite much criticism … as I’d had a retained placenta and PPH with DD2.” I’m not sure why she thought that was going to work out well. It’s the equivalent of planning an outdoor wedding in hurricane season.
When she went into labor, neither her family nor her doula was available to assist her as she had planned, so she went to the hospital. She had an uncomplicated, unmedicated vaginal birth, but that was not good enough:
My contractions were extremely intense and on top of each other and I hopped into the shower. I gradually felt the urge to push but the pressure in my bottom was unbearable… His was the longest 2nd stage out of my births… I pushed and I pushed and I pushed. The pressure in my bottom was unlike any pain I’ve felt. It literally felt like he was coming out of my bottom and not my vagina. At this point I lost control. I remember crying, screaming and swearing because it was too much… I needed those women who I had envisioned in my mind to be there. Women who knew me and what I needed and knew that I needed to feel like I wasn’t alone.
… [A]t some point the midwife revealed that he was posterior… I had a moment of clarity where I spoke to myself about just doing it. And I did. I pushed him to a point where he could no longer slide back in and finally he was born. It was 12.44am. I was on all fours and immediately spun around to take my son into my arms. He was quiet at first and needed some vigorous rubbing up to take his much needed breath. I talked to him and kissed and cuddled him – so relieved that he was alive
Then came the entirely predictable hurricane retained placenta and postpartum hemorrhage.
… I however continued to bleed sporadically and would not let go of my placenta. More hormones were injected into me, I was blew into a bottle and squatted over the toilet but my placenta was not ready to come. I even tried telling myself that it was time to let go of my placenta and birth it. But sadly that didn’t work either. So I was taken away from my baby yet again and whisked off to theatre for a manual removal where I lost a further litre of blood making a total of 1.7L blood loss
So let’s see. She had a healthy baby after an uncomplicated, unmedicated vaginal delivery. Then she had a retained placenta and hemorrhage (which had been predicted) and her life was saved by a manual removal. Now she’s disappointed. Why? Because it wasn’t exactly the way she envisioned it should be even though she was foolish to imagine that it could ever be the way that she envisioned it.
In other words, she experienced what passes for “trauma” in the NCB and homebirth community. She didn’t get exactly what she wanted dammit and she was disappointed.
That’s not trauma; that’s life.
Only the immature and self-centered believe that they are entitled to have all their dreams come true (no matter how unrealistic) and then cry “trauma” when it turns out that everything cannot always be the way they want it.
Addendum (2-14-13): Another legal eagle has decided to abuse the DMCA process. Kelly Winder the creator of the Australian website BellyBelly has filed a DMCA notice for the express purpose of shutting down my website. She helpfully explains why she is filing what is almost certainly a frivolous DMCA notice.
“… I am seeking that this ‘hate’ website get taken down as Dr Amy has an appalling history of trolling websites and doing this to women, but I don’t know if many of her victims have realized they can report this sort of thing (or understand how to do it).”
Apparently Kelly’s knowledge of the law is no better than her knowledge of birth. She doesn’t appear to understand that you cannot shut down a website with a DMCA notice or that using a DMCA notice for this express purpose is a violation of the statute, leaving her open to a lawsuit and monetary damages.
Kelly doesn’t understand that a DMCA notice merely requires that I remove the blocks of text temporarily. It does not prevent me from discussing the original post located on her website, linking to it, or linking to the cached version that anyone can read. And the best part: if Kelly doesn’t file suit against me within 14 days, I can put it all back. [3-4-13: She didn’t file suit and I put the quotes back.]
As you can see, the post is still here and we are still discussing it. So basically Kelly has made a complete fool of herself for no purpose at all and managed to expose herself to legal risk for abusing the DMCA process.
