You NEVER Fail

Fail is the “f” word of birth.  It does NOT apply to you.  And everyone need stop stop saying it.  What a terrible word to apply to inductions and VBACs and everywhere else they use it. What a way to set mothers up. Ranks right up there with Advanced Maternal Age.  Sometime the system fails.  Sometimes part of the care team fails.  Sometimes what you perceive (or are told) as a failure really is the very best choice for you and your baby.  But I’m telling you, and listen, YOU NEVER FAIL.​

Birth is a journey for which we can never fully prepare.  Sometimes the road is smooth and uneventful.  Sometimes it’s not.  Sometimes we can do all the “right” things to ensure the birth we think we want and it works.  Or sometimes we get thrown a curve ball and it just doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, it’s not a failure.  It’s a birth.  There is a baby.  There is a mother.  A family grows.   

Somehow we’ve got to figure out how to promote normal birth without making people feel terrible when it doesn’t work.  Somehow our care system has to figure out how to intervene as necessary rather than as standard procedure so we can trust the system.  I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I know this to be true. Because sometimes, the interventions we are trying desperately to avoid really are the right choice and the best thing for us as mothers and our babies. 

I know, right about now someone will be thinking that, “if they just had a home birth….” Sure.  But not always and the women who are risked out (and those for whom it is just not a comfortable choice) also deserve to have good, evidence based care and to not be told that they should have had a home birth and all would be well.  

Whether or not you did things “right” doesn’t matter.  Having adequate information to make good decisions matters.  Good as in the best for you.  How you, as a mother, are treated matters.  What happens to your baby matters. How you feel about it in the moment and looking back matters.  But there is no failure no matter what.