Recently on Loose Woman (I know, I know but it’s my guilty pleasure), Denise Van Outen spoke of feeling ‘guilty’ and ‘judged’ for having an elective c-section after being traumatised from tales of her mother and sister’s deliveries. She received a huge backlash from viewers.
Have we all not been afraid of something in our lives and made decisions based on these fears?
Who has the right to say her decision was wrong? Surely, she felt her decision was the right one for herself and her baby.
From as far back as I remember I was always told by the women in my family “there’s no way you’ll have a baby naturally – it’ll definitely be a section”. This conclusion reached because of my challenges in the vertical sense (I’m 4”10 on a good day) and my small feet, relating to the size of your pelvis (an old wives tale). Stubborn me always thought – “Just you wait, I’ll show ya!” So, when the time came around I refused to be ‘too posh to push’ and was induced for suspected pre-eclampsia four days after my due date. It was the most horrendous three days of my life and resulted the way everyone (and maybe even me a little) said it would, in an emergency c-section. Next time around, there was no way I was going through that again and opted for an elective from the get go.
Did I feel judged? Yes, I did.
I always felt I needed explain my decision to everyone. Giving them the whole low down as to why my Consultant also thought this was the safest delivery method for me. I wasn’t taking the easy way out, I was doing what was best for me and my baby at the time. In hindsight, I’d have opted for an elective c-section first time round too!
Becoming a Mummy opens a whole other level of judgment which begins the second that little swimmer meets its egg. Should you lower your caffeine intake? Can you have a glass of wine? Is it safe to eat that cheese? Where will you deliver the baby? HOW WILL YOU DELIVER THE BABY? How will the baby be fed? Where will the baby sleep? Will you go back to work? The list is endless and everyone will have an opinion based on what worked for them.
Do we care too much what other people think? Definitely!
Haven’t we always? Even before Motherhood… Whether it be our appearance or our beliefs. Maybe that shouldn’t be a ‘we’ but an ‘I’. I look back and think WHY!?
Maybe it’s an age thing, maybe it’s a Mummy thing but I’m slowly learning not to care so much what everyone else thinks. It’s hard not to let another person’s judgment influence you but once my brood is happy – I am too.
So, we shouldn’t feel judged. We should believe in our decisions and know (even if they turn out to be the wrong one) we’re doing what we think is best.
