Hey, you look troubled. Or is that just your lazy eye?

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An interesting take on c-sections from across the pond - The new "natural" Caesarean.

I think it's way cool that the medical community wants to make a Caesarean birth as fulfilling for the parent(s) as possible. That's huge. My first was not fulfilling, but it was memorable for the overriding belief that if I closed my eyes I was going to die (no food for 24 hours, plus 22 hours of labor, plus 12 hours of epdiural, plus the addition of more anesthetic when they prepped me for the c/s does not equal a lucid brain). Miss O's was more fulfilling, as it was a planned thing that I entered knowing what to expect, and thanks to the wonderful anesthesiologist who gave me a play-by-play for the whole time he was at my side.

Of course, the "more AP than thou" crowd is mounting high horses and deriding the word choice (natural, they scoff, is not appropriate with c-sections) and making sure everyone knows that a c-section still isn't a valid birth experience compared with the home-based, all soft music, no anesthetic, primal scream birth *they* had.

Because, you know, there's nothing more empowering for a woman than demeaning the choices and experiences of another woman.

So yeah, I'm troubled today.

The mommy wars. Love them. They're just great. They do so much to empower and embolden women and to show the other gender just how mature and reasonable we are. Nothing says "anything you can do I can do better" than a bunch of b*tch-slapping at each other for being sub-par mommies.

Don't think the sarcasm is all because I feel defensive about my own choices. Because, for the most part, I don't. I tend to be the kind of person for whom a past choice is in the "it is what it is" category - I don't spend long hours lamenting the two c-sections I had, or how I could have prevented them, or what I could have done differently as I raised my girls. None of that matters to me because I can't un-do any of it.

But I know lots of women who do mourn their birth experiences, their early childhoood choices ... I don't understand the choice to do so, but I accept that they do. And having the holier-than-thou crowd harping on every choice that isn't wrapped in hemp blankets, dressed with herbal tinctures, served on a fair-trade and sustainably harvested plate with a side of placenta, all covered in a mystic special sauce that embodies all that is primal and contains a puree of all non-midwife medical professionals ... well, that's just stupid. And demeaning to mothers and to women. And divisive and unkind. And totally not feminist or woman-centric at all.

So to the holier-than-thou chicas, a few words of advice - get. over. your. selves. And yes, I get the irony of me soapboxing to tell others not to soapbox. But sometimes things just need to be said. As long as you're not whacking your kid with a spoon, or leaving them in a car while you go tie one on at the bar, or berating and deriding them and their choices, you're probably a decent parent. If you need to put yourself and your parenting practices on high and criticize everyone else's choices, you have much bigger things to concern yourself with in your own psyche than you have to worry about in others' choices.

Kisses.
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