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Because women compete in other areas, giving birth sucks either way sometimes and I guess the biggest prize in the world...a healthy baby...still isn't enough. I preferred my v____al delivery to my c-section FYI.

Most women who had issues with delivery, whether v____ally or via c-section, are looking for sympathy. Personally, I feel like I got cheated out of the birthing experience because I had to have a c-section.

I felt cheated by having a c-section at first. Over time, I realized that any birth where baby and mother are both all right is a success.

May I add that many of us c/s moms feel pretty bad when vag moms say "Oh you had yours the easy way" when we may have had awful or gruesome experiences! I automatically put the gloves on when someone says that to me...can't help it. I nearly bled to death with one of mine and that kind of comment insults me every single time.

Strange as this sounds, I had one of each kinds of delivery and I can honestly say neither one was better or worse than the other, just different. I guess if I had to choose it would be v____al because I did get up and about faster.

I feel women are not supported enough during natural labor and are put on unrealistic timetables to "get it done by ? or else!" Study after study of birthing animals has clearly shown the direct relationship with intrusions and restriction of a laboring mother and increased complications AND THE ACTUAL STOPPAGE OF LABOR PROGRESSION. So when a woman is laboring along at her own rythym someone comes in and declares her a "failure to progress" and commences cutting on her. This has a profound effect on a woman, she has tried valiantly and has literally been declared a "failure" by the very reason chosen to take her to surgery. I am NOT saying a woman is a failure by any means, but that is an underlying feeling that pervades many of us who had no choice in our birthing method. It is very harmful to hear TV discussions of the swing towards the "easy way" when it wasn't that way for you, so one gets very defensive. On the flip side, a woman who has labored long and hard, who's epidural (or lack of) didn't provide pain relief, who has to have an episiotomy or tears and has numerous st_tches down below feels that she has been to war and back...and she didn't enjoy it at all. Vaginal mothers are shown media pics of hardworking mothers focused on pushing and it all goes smoothly and then when the baby is laid on her chest she is supposed to feel nothing but joy...meanwhile she is completely split open in a very sensitive area and feeling anything but joy. So either way, there are expectations and let downs, by feeling justified in our individual recollections of birth we can deal with it better and by human nature, there is one side or the other...to djh- I know just what you mean!!! I work in LD and I do not allow ANYONE to say that to my mothers, c/s or vag. It is demeaning and implies a cop-out has occurred.

It doesn't help either when on shows like a baby story that they show the mothers who deliver v____ally doing their hardest part but they never show how terrified the c-section mothers are, or how they puke on the table or bleed too much. And they NEVER show the c-sect moms hobbling around in excruciating pain either. That is why I told my friends who are expecting their first babies not to watch those shows until after they give birth. They don't show the soreness and tears of the vag moms and the pain and long recovery for the c-section moms. It just makes the debate worse.

Yup-I puked all over-and you can't move-so it is quit humiliating in a sense having to rely on someone to suction my face from vomit-oh, but c-sections are "the easy way out" ya right-tell me about it when you feel like you've been gutted like a pig!!!!

As long as you end up with a beautiful healthy baby, who really cares HOW the kid got out of you? I had to have an unplanned c-section with my first baby, and now have a scheduled c-section next month because of my higher risk of uterine rupture with this pregnancy. I really do not care the method of delivery... I just want what is best for my baby! It drives me nuts when some women feel like they have to be some sort of hero for womenkind by having a v____al birth. I wish I could know what a v____al birth felt like, but I don't pine away thinking about it. I have a gorgeous, healthy child!

i'm 35 weeks with breech twins, so I don't have much of a choice. I HATE it when people say, "oh, you have to have a C?!?!" that doesn't make me feel better! today I saw on one of the baby shows a DOCTOR saying, "well, looks like we'll have to take the easy way out since you aren't progressing" - meaning a C - and I wanted to yell at the TV - "yeah, easy for YOU, not the MOM!" arg - it's so true people are so opinionated and biased about delivery - we are lucky that C's are available as an option when some of us need them.

Yeah, I saw that baby show too, I wanted to scream at the TV, who on God's Earth thinks getting cut open is the easy way? I mean you don't hear doctors say that before they remove a gall-bladder, like for sure he's going to say, want to lay in a hospital bed for 4 days? Let's have surgery...that ought to be good for a few fun days off...man...Good luck to you on your twins, congrats on getting them this far, you are amazing!!!!

yanna,that is very true.I have had 3 children,the 1st an emergency c-section,as I was tired,and getting no-where,the 2nd,and for me the worst was a natural birth.I had an epidural,only it just took down one leg,and had to go back to the doctor for some time after.I was very sore had some st_tches.The last birth was a planned section,this was easier than my emergency one as I was not tired,I did get an infection afterwards,but saying all that,for me it was the best,as other women have also said.I did not enjoy labour,I did not enjoy getting my baby out the natural way.I always just wanted the two children,but we had number 3.Two is a nice number I think.!

OMG I totally agree. A baby story does not give an accurate picture of what it is to have a c-section. I was screeeeeaming on that table after they took my son out because they had to put my uterus back in!!! They slammed it in and all of that pressure really felt like pain. And while I was screaming there was this one nurse who kept saying, "Uterus pain is god pain, there are no pain killers". If I could have moved, me and this lady would have been thuuuummmmping. I also was having a hard time with the drapery that they put in front of your face to cover the cut from you. It kept touching my nose and I was getting claustophobic. And the horrible part was that I could not move it myself because my arms were strapped down. But I did end up with a beautiful (huge) baby boy. Lifes not that bad, I guess.

But TC!!! According to the c-sects are easy group you had yours the "easy way"...have you been able to figure out what part they think was "easy"? I sure haven't.

I think as long as women are made to feel special only if they have a long, or "terrible"birth experience we will continue to have this compet_tion of sorts...it almost seems like when a woman is pregnant or recently gave birth other women ask how was your delivery? Which way did it go? If you say what transpired there are always those who have to "out do" you with comments like, "oh. you had a c-section, you were lucky, MY birth was so painful....yadda yadda yadda" and meanwhile you had just been to Hell and back and lost tons of blood and had an infection and a huge abdominal wound and you are thinking..."what on Earth is this person talking about...easy? When? How?" That is one reason for this unnecessary compet_tion. I am sure the v____al birth mothers have had the same experience to the opposite, like "oh, at least you didn't have a c-section...it was so yadda yadda yadda.." when the vag mom is sitting on tons of st_tches and is still leaking urine or such and had 20 hours of hard labor. Any how, that is, Yanna, why we must make BIRTH better for all, not make it either or, best or worse.

There is always going to be VERY opinionated women who believe that if you get one-you're a wuss and those that feel that babies should be born out of the v____a and no other way. To me, as long as the mom and baby are ok then great!!