Opinions

Lately I’ve noticed how opinions can easily turn into vicious gossip, and how hurtful it can be to be on the other end of such ‘opinion’.  

I caught myself the other day. I was waiting for a tram, and a woman was pushing her child in a pram. I heard her get angry and yell at the child, and the child cried loudly, very upset. I noticed all my judgments and opinions coming out, loud and strong. Then I thought, “I don’t know anything about this situation. I don’t know what kind of hour, day, week, year, life she has had, what she is dealing with, what her child is like, whether she has adequate support….” and the list goes on. That shut up my opinions pretty quickly. After all, the last thing that this woman needed, was me staring at her with my righteous judgments.

It got me thinking. It has been an ongoing lesson for me to give up caring what other people think or say about me, especially since Leroy’s birth.  I know I can’t control what other people think or say about me, or my choices, but it still bothers me, especially when it’s completely untrue.   

Take home birth and Caesarian-sections for example.

There are many, many studies to show that for a healthy mum and baby, home births are as safe, and are often safer, than a hospital. Now I know this just goes against the grain of what some people believe to be the absolute truth.  It’s partly cultural.  Home births are not all that common in Australia, so people think it’s not safe, or irresponsible, or dangerous, crazy, or some other version of that.  How and what the media chooses to report on when it comes to home births seems to fuel this line of thinking.

When I was 21, I remember having a wonderful conversation with Sue, the mother of my boyfriend at that time. They had emigrated from the UK, where home birth is much more prevalent. She shared with me how beautiful the births of her 3 sons had been, all of them at home supported by midwives. I was blown away with this notion, as I’d not really heard of it before. It struck a cord with me, and I think it planted a seed.

Fast forward to when I was in my mid-thirties. My friend asked me if I would be part of their birth team, as a support to her husband. It was their first baby, and it was a homebirth. Wow, did this open my eyes. It was an amazing, beautiful birth, and an experience that I will never forget.

It makes me sad to think that people make all kinds of judgments about families (particularly mothers) that choose to have a home birth. That somehow our ‘home birth’ was to blame for Leroy’s brain injury and subsequent death. 

I have spoken to quite a few people in the medical world since Leroy’s birth, and there is one conversation in particular I want to share. It was a meeting I had with a head obstetrician from the Royal Women’s Hospital.  We had a very frank conversation about shoulder dystocia, and he said “We have some very good outcomes from shoulder dystocia in this hospital, but let me tell you, we have some very, very bad outcomes from shoulder dystocia in this hospital. It’s just so unpredictable”.

Even though I already knew this was the case, it was good to hear him confirm it.  Along my journey, I have had to face every ‘what if’ you can imagine, and really confront and account for my decisions, including going for a VBAC and having a home birth.  Thankfully I have had incredible support, and that dark place called “It was my fault” does not reside within me.  Quite frankly, I don’t know if I would have been able to consider experiencing another pregnancy and birth and of course having another baby if I blamed myself (or anyone else for that matter) for Leroy’s brain injury.  I would not want to create and bring a new life, a new baby, into that space.

Back to judgments. It’s a similar story with caesarian sections.  I know some people think that once you have one caesarian, all subsequent births should be caesarian.  And yet this is not the reality nowadays.   When I had an unplanned caesarian with Dylan at the Royal Women’s Hospital, the doctor discharging me told me that just because I had a caesarian this time around, did not mean I couldn’t have a vaginal birth if there was a next time.  I remember thinking, “Yes, you betcha I will”. 

They have a great brochure that outlines the negatives and positives of both vaginal birth and caesarian births, after having a caesarian.  Great to have information that enables women and their partners to make informed choices.  And yet some people say that if Leroy’s birth had been a caesarian, he would be here today, a healthy 3 year old.

Well yes, if crystal balls were indeed a reality, we would have had a caesarian, and it is more likely that Leroy would have had a very different start to life. Of course, we can never really know, and we cannot undo the past.

Since becoming pregnant this time around, most people have been very supportive and are very happy for us. Unfortunately there have been some comments and interactions I would rather have not had. Opinions and judgments are a part of life, I know, it’s just that sometimes it really hurts.