Why This Particular C-Section Scar Should Finally Get People to Stop Claiming It's "Not Birth"
Jodie Shaw gave birth by C-section, and she wants to emphasize the "gave birth" part.
In a moving Facebook post shared on the Birth Without Fear support group page, she also revealed a dramatic photo of her C-section scar. Unlike many, hers was anything but ordinary — the result of having a fibroid the size of a melon on her cervix and a low-lying placenta.
"But whether you believe this or not, I gave birth to my baby," she wrote after reading yet another social media post from someone insinuating that a cesarean, quite simply, doesn't count.
Can we please just stop?! I obviously can't change people's views, but I've decided to post this picture to see if it may make people understand that despite what our birth plans might say, sometimes we don't get a choice. I didn't get a choice.
So next time you judge someone for not doing what you consider to be "giving birth," please take a minute to think about why they may have had to deliver that way. Think about the fact that given the choice they probably wouldn't have chosen this but had no choice.
As for her pronounced scar, she knows the true meaning behind it: "It saved me from losing a life-threatening amount of blood and meant my baby was brought into this world as she should be. Healthy and unharmed, as was I."