Did you know vaginal birth envy is a thing?
I know because I had it. I used to get it every time I’d hear a friend delivered “naturally”. For various reasons, I delivered each of my three children, now 12, 9 and 6 1/2 via Cesarean section (C-section)
I was one of those women who read everything under the sun before having my first child. I placed a high premium on delivering vaginally as that is how our ancestors have done it for centuries before the advent of modern technology to assist with labor and delivery.
Also, going to due date forums, you meet all these women who also talk about birth plans, the optimal birthing experience with a special emphasis placed on doing it as natural as possible.
And of course, there, we’d find the occasional woman who loved her body, her lifestyle and her options and saw absolutely nothing wrong with bringing her children into the world with the most amount of assistance and pain free as possible. She was the first to tell a mom who had a c-section to buck up because at least her vajajay is still tight and intact! Woi! And everyone would tell you, it doesn’t matter how a baby got here, all that is important is that they arrived with all ten fingers and toes and were healthy.
“All babies are natural,” they’d tell me. Yup. Yup. But still.
Notwithstanding all of that, whenever I heard news that a friend had delivered, I used to ask about the birth and would secretly wish they had to get a c-section too and when I’d learn they did not a flush of jealousy would come over me.
It took a while, but as my kids got older and my friends stopped having babies, I eventually did get over it and no longer harbor those sinister thoughts and resentments. I matured on the matter.
In hindsight, I can blame my conditioning, over education and deep seated passion for wanting to be old school. I used to think that I never truly experienced birthing as God intended because I never had a vaginal birth.
Who else had vaginal delivery envy? I know I wasn’t the only one.