I must be the worst mother on MKP

TXVIOLET31 wrote:
Well, im a formula feeding mom whos relieved I got a c-section so i
didnt have to push that baby out!

Okay, I admit it. I just don't get why anyone would be relieved to be cut
open rather than pushing out a baby. I don't mean that as an attack: I'm
glad you're relieved and happy about it. I just can't figure what it is
about pushing that some women find so awful. I mean, I presume women have
had bowel movements every day of their lives (unless they're having
"problems", of course!). Pushing out a baby just isn't that much different.
At least in my experience.

So what is it about pushing that freaks some folks out? I'm genuinely
curious.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 5), and the Rising Son (Julian, 7)

"Bush didn't pee his pants or kill anyone, so my guess is that people will
say [the third debate] was a tie."--Jessi Klein
(http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...log/index.html)

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

In message , Mum of Two
writes
Everyone here is so perfect! It seems you all wear your babies constantly,
co-sleep with them when you aren't wearing them, rock them for hours on end
while they scream, and manage all this even with a dozen other children
besides and a successful career. Those of you who don't have a career cook,
bake, make your own clothes, baby products, and are basically Martha Stewart
minus the criminal record. Still others of you are _always right_ or at
least have an annoying way of posting which makes it appear that way to
everyone who reads you, myself included. Do you ever get hormonal,
overtired? What is your breaking point? Do you have one?

Ooooh! Can we found a Bad Mothers' Club of mkp?

I mean, I know I don't really qualify as yet because I don't yet have a
baby but am still at the stage of planning how I'm going to take care of
him once he arrives, which means that naturally I'm still a perfect
mother who does everything right. But I definitely plan _not_ to
co-sleep. And even though I do plan to wear him, it's only because it
looks like fun and probably easier than having to pick him up all the
time - as far as I'm concerned, if I find I'm too tired wearing him then
straight into the carseat he goes. And my breaking point? Probably the
first night I have to get up for night feeds. Oh, and I'm totally
clueless about sewing and not much better at cooking. Do I qualify for
the Bad Mothers' Club yet?

I don't wear DD. She amuses herself a lot under a playgym. In fact, I don't
even think she likes me because she cries and struggles when I pick her up
sometimes.

I doubt if that's personal. She probably just finds the playgym more
interesting. I can see why a baby would find a playgym more interesting
than me, since I don't have any dangly brightly-coloured bits, so maybe
we'll find the same thing once we have ours.

She cries herself to sleep a lot, in her own room.

From reading your other thread, it sounds as if this is what suits her -
I mean, it sounds as if she's one of those babies who has to do a bit of
wind-down crying just to get to sleep and would actually get more
overtired and upset if you _didn't_ put her down.

I tell her off
when she bites me.

Good - that way she'll learn not to do it & you can keep breastfeeding
for longer.

She has cat hair in her nappy, and sometimes in her
mouth.

That's nice - she'll learn about different textures.

She doesn't get enough tummy-time,

Enough for what?

so she's starting to crawl upside
down.

She's starting to crawl at only three and a half months? You've got an
advanced baby!

She would rather watch TV, at three & a half months, than look at us.

Well, you could always try standing inside a giant cardboard box acting
out soap opera scenes, & see whether that helps.....

I can't/won't cook nor bake - the other mothers at my coffee group thought
my scones were biscuits.

If you can produce something that looks and tastes like biscuits, you're
doing more cooking than me. Can I visit?

I don't do sewing either.

Me neither. Well, actually, I did manage to sew a button back onto my
maternity trousers a couple of months ago. Only took me three tries to
get it right, as well. So I'm very proud of myself and figure I can
rest on my laurels for a while. Does this disqualify me from being a
Bad Mothers' Club member?

Actually, I don't do much
of anything.

Yup, this bit does sound like me.

I am frequently hormonal and irrational, and constantly
contradict myself. I don't make a lot of sense most of the time, even to me.

Ditto. Well, except for the hormonal bit - I don't get hormonal, it's
just my normal personality.

At least she's breast-fed and side-slept, so she'll have a good immune
system and a nice shaped head when she starts therapy.

There ya go - what more do you need?


All the best,

Sarah

--
"I once requested an urgent admission for a homeopath who had become depressed
and taken a massive underdose" - Phil Peverley

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 09:03:33 -0700, "Circe"
scribbled:

TXVIOLET31 wrote:
Well, im a formula feeding mom whos relieved I got a c-section so i
didnt have to push that baby out!

Okay, I admit it. I just don't get why anyone would be relieved to be cut
open rather than pushing out a baby. I don't mean that as an attack: I'm
glad you're relieved and happy about it. I just can't figure what it is
about pushing that some women find so awful. I mean, I presume women have
had bowel movements every day of their lives (unless they're having
"problems", of course!). Pushing out a baby just isn't that much different.
At least in my experience.

So what is it about pushing that freaks some folks out? I'm genuinely
curious.

I think I mentioned this in your thread about your niece. Having had
both a vaginal delivery and 2 sections, I can say that it isn't the
*pushing* that freaked me out during the vaginal delivery.
It was that it was my first baby, and there was a HUGE unknown factor.
All the research, reading, and classes in the world can't possibly
prepare you for every contingent of childbirth. In fact, it's often
stressed that everyone's labor is different, and can vary wildly.

With a section, you have a doctor that explains the procedure to you,
just like any other pre-surgery process. You get more definitive
answers about what *will* happen.

Now, I'm definitely not saying it's better to have a section. In
fact, quite the opposite, given what happened after mine.
But I still remember even almost 21 years later how frightening it was
when I was in labor with my son.

Nan

"Thanks Wendy, that's really kind. It's not just being a good mother, but
I
feel the house is my domain now, and the pressure to be a good partner as
well. It didn't used to bother me, because I used to work longer hours
than DH, so we had more of a flatmate type relationship where the house
was
concerned. I worry that now that I'm at home, he's going to want more of
a
Stepford Wife personality type, after all now I'm sitting at home on my
a$$ all day, it doesn't really matter if I'm smart or not."

I feel exactly the same, PRE-baby, which is alarming. Both my husband
and I just got our PhDs, had a very equal relationship in terms of
cooking/cleaning the house/ doing errands, were in the same place in terms
of jobs (working at the uni, although of course he STILL got paid more as
an engineering grad student than I did as a history grad student!) and
responsibilities, and I felt like I had interesting things to talk about,
think about, blah blah. Now, I feel like a glorified maid (a maid with
privileges?? haha), and I'm afraid it's going to be even worse when the
baby's here and I get to be a glorified maid/diaper
changer/cow/one-who-has-to-get-up-
all-the-time since I'm not "earning the living". I miss the flatmate
relationship, and I'm rebelling against Stepford already!! (and most of
this is probably in *my* head, not in DH's actual expectations)

As for the floor... well, for the first few weeks of living in our new
apt. I vaccumed once a week. OK, for the first 2 weeks. Now it's down to
every other week. I'm sure the time is coming when I fall back into my
old habit: "oh, we're going to be moving in about 6 months so what's the
point of cleaning at all???"

Em
baby boy, due Nov. 18

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:03:48 -0700, "Jenrose"
wrote:

snip

We don't have dust bunnies. They're older. They're bigger. They're Dust
Mastodons.

Jenrose


LOL! I'm going to have to remember that line and steal it from you.

Katie

"Circe" wrote in message
news:c3Rdd.35708$bk1.17196@fed1read05...
TXVIOLET31 wrote:
Well, im a formula feeding mom whos relieved I got a c-section so i
didnt have to push that baby out!

Okay, I admit it. I just don't get why anyone would be relieved to be cut
open rather than pushing out a baby. I don't mean that as an attack: I'm
glad you're relieved and happy about it. I just can't figure what it is
about pushing that some women find so awful. I mean, I presume women have
had bowel movements every day of their lives (unless they're having
"problems", of course!). Pushing out a baby just isn't that much
different.
At least in my experience.

So what is it about pushing that freaks some folks out? I'm genuinely
curious.

Well, I never made it to the pushing stages, but I know one of my fears in
my induced labor was that the contractions would actually hurt the baby,
especially since he was so little and fragile-they were so hard, and so fast
and hurt me enough (even through an epidural) that I couldn't imagine the
poor little thing not being tossed around like clothes in a dryer! So maybe
that's part of it-pushing the poor little thing
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 5), and the Rising Son (Julian, 7)

"Bush didn't pee his pants or kill anyone, so my guess is that people will
say [the third debate] was a tie."--Jessi Klein
(http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...log/index.html)

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:37:13 -0500, "Nikki" wrote:

Circe wrote:
Irrational Number wrote:
Chotii wrote:

People do not see my living room floor, which has not been
vacuumed in quite possibly 2 weeks.

That's it? 2 weeks? Try a few months here...
(Oops, maybe I should not have admitted that!)

The only reason mine is vacuumed daily is that my nanny does it.
Otherwise, it would probably be two weeks between vacuumings (but I'd
have to do it every other Tuesday because the cub scouts den meeting
currently meets here!).

I have wood floors in my living room and bedrooms. I sweep them once a
month. I think I've mopped them once since I've lived here, lol.

I do the kitchen a little more often ;-)

I'm very lucky that my DH seems to have a floor fetish. He vacuums
pretty regularly (well, once every couple of weeks, which is good
enough for me) and is practically obsessed with cleaning any stains
that occur. He also does the bathroom fairly often, which is great
since that's my least favourite job.

Now, if he'd just pick up the clothes around his side of the bed...

Katie

Nan wrote:
On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 09:03:33 -0700, "Circe"
scribbled:
So what is it about pushing that freaks some folks out? I'm
genuinely curious.

I think I mentioned this in your thread about your niece. Having
had both a vaginal delivery and 2 sections, I can say that it isn't the
*pushing* that freaked me out during the vaginal delivery.
It was that it was my first baby, and there was a HUGE unknown
factor. All the research, reading, and classes in the world can't
possibly prepare you for every contingent of childbirth. In fact,
it's often stressed that everyone's labor is different, and can vary
wildly.

Well, I certainly get the "fear of the unknown" factor. Before I was well
into my first pregnancy, I really thought a planned c-section would be
"easier" than a vaginal birth. I ultimately realized, though, that I was
probably over-horribilizing labor and under-horribilizing c-section
recovery. (Of course, it's entirely possible that to this day, I
over-horribilize c-section recovery!) And my first birth, while not as great
as my second or third, turned out to be relatively easy.

With a section, you have a doctor that explains the procedure to
you, just like any other pre-surgery process. You get more definitive
answers about what *will* happen.

But you don't get to know it advance how much pain you'll be in *after* the
surgery or for how long. I guess *I* find the whole idea of having a
c-section totally terrifying precisely because it seems so patently clear to
me that having a huge cut in the abdomen has *got* to hurt--A LOT! While
labor pain is no picnic, there are good pain relief options if you decide
you can't take it (epidurals are *very* effective for most people) and once
you've given birth, most of the pain goes away (and if you have a good
caregiver who protects your perineum, you'll only be a bit sore in your
nether regions for a day or to at most).

To me, it seems that by planning a c-section, you're just trading one
unknown for another. The unknown is that you don't know how much postpartum
pain you'll have any more than you know how much pain you'll have during
labor. I just don't see why one type of pain is preferable to the other (and
personally can't help imagining that labor pain, which is typically
intermittent, surely *must* be less intense than the pain that follows major
surgery!).

Now, I'm definitely not saying it's better to have a section. In
fact, quite the opposite, given what happened after mine.

Oh yeah, I'm sure that's true.

But I still remember even almost 21 years later how frightening it
was when I was in labor with my son.

Interesting. I honestly never felt frightened in labor, even my first labor.
Even when it got painful enough that I wanted pain relief, I didn't feel
frightened. I wonder what factors lead to people being *frightened* during
labor? I think understanding that could really be quite key to reducing both
the amount of pain people experience during labor and the desire for
elective c-sections.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 5), and the Rising Son (Julian, 7)

"Bush didn't pee his pants or kill anyone, so my guess is that people will
say [the third debate] was a tie."--Jessi Klein
(http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...log/index.html)

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 16:20:12 +0100, "Anne Rogers"
wrote:
Amy, you are not, I must definitely qualify as worse, though I do blame it
on the hormones and PPD, but have you ever put your child in the oven? Or
left them in a shop, no I thought not, I am now officially the worst mother!
Though I did and still do baby wear if that redeems me at all!

You have put your child in the oven?! Do tell...
I've heard of leaving a child in the shop. Luckily I've never
forgotten any children anywhere but I've done other stupid things lol
Marie

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:08:40 +0100, Sarah Vaughan
wrote:
Ooooh! Can we found a Bad Mothers' Club of mkp?

This was posted to a couple of newsgroups recently.
http://www.badmothersclub.co.uk/jsp/index.jsp
Marie