“What do you do?” asked the lady beside me on a plane.
After hearing I was an OB/GYN, she quickly launched into her own birth story.
She described a long induction followed by 2 hours of pushing, then an emergency c-section. About half way through the tale, her voice began to take on a bitter tone. As she spoke of her doctor, I noticed her hands began to clench into tight fists.
“If only I had been more assertive and demanded to walk, I’m sure I could have had a vaginal delivery. My doctor was awful. It was his fault. He didn’t care about my experience. I was just a number to him. I didn’t get to breast feed for hours because of the drugs from my c-section. The experience put me into a yearlong depression.”
She remarked that her baby had been over 10 pounds. As I listened and nodded sympathetically, I felt for her that her delivery had not been ideal. I looked at her small frame, though and doubted any amount of walking would have resulted in a vaginal delivery.
The woman, who was at least 50 years old, then changed the subject and showed me a pictures of her granddaughter.
This encounter played out in my mind many times over the next few weeks. I thought about the level of anger this woman had been carrying around for 30 years. Was it justified? Maybe. But what was the anger accomplishing? Nothing…other than making her a bitter person.
I see this occasionally as people rehash their labor stories. If things don’t go exactly as written on their birth plan, they feel someone must be at fault. Their anger feels so JUSTIFIED that they want to hang on to it. If ever the conversation swings to pregnancy they immediately pipe in about their terrible experience:
“My epidural didn’t work.”
“My mother in law was too loud in the delivery room.”
“The nursery gave my baby a pacifier.”
“The doctor gave me an episiotomy.”
There is a genuine sense of loss associated with a labor gone awry, even if mom and baby are healthy. It’s OK to be sad that the birth process didn’t go as planned, but not to let the feeling of sadness fester into bitterness.
As Christians we are commanded to forgive. The Lord’s Prayer Matthew 6 says we are to pray like this. . .often: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
You have to learn to forgive, and make peace with what happened in your delivery. If not, you’ll turn into an angry old woman on a plane.
Maybe it’s not a doctor or nurse that needs to be forgiven, but someone else in your life. Whoever that person is, take the time to really let it go and walk in forgiveness. If at anytime you are tempted to pick up the offense again, remember you are only hurting yourself.
“Unforgiveness is like eating a spoonful of poison everyday and hoping that it kills the other person.” ~ Farrah Moore in From Hurt to Hope .
What about you? Do you blame someone for your less-than-perfect delivery? Is there someone you need to forgive?
{Photo used courtesy of Creative Commons}
Who do You Blame for Your C-Section? is a post from: The Pregnancy Companion