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In general all discussions around the topic of pregnancy seem to weirdly avoid the topic of both temporary and permanent pain and health problems as a result. It appears to be some kind of taboo to discuss. I'm not sure why.
I definitely remember feeling betrayed during my first pregnancy because cultural portrayal of pregnancy basically stopped and ended at "haha they throw up" (morning sickness was never really treated as a big deal) plus "labor is very painful get an epidural"
(...I didn't go into this above, but another reason I have mostly chosen not to get epidurals is because I know too many cases of epidurals not working, or causing horrific headaches for weeks after, or in one hopefully extreme outlier case I just happened to be close to, causing complete lower body paralysis for several years — so except for the first labor where the pain was SO bad (and I was also advised to get an epidural because they wanted to induce me (the epidural ended up reducing my pain so much my body was able to stop tensing up and actually let labor progress, so I ended up not needing an induction)) I've chosen to avoid them because I'd rather have the more manageable pain I experienced later than the risks.)
I definitely didn't feel like I'd been adequately warned what I was actually risking. I actually went from prolife to prochoice during my first pregnancy, because I became convinced forcing someone to be pregnant against their will was Evil with a capital E. (I do not believe a fetus is a full human, such that keeping them alive justifies torturing a full human being). Like yeah, I was willing to endure it to have a child I wanted from a partner I loved. But making someone do it against their will? I'd never realized how sick that was, because I'd never realized how awful pregnancy was, because, well, no one talked about it except for jokes about morning sickness. I had no clue.
(...which is crazy, because I'm someone who researches things a lot in advance. I read What to expect when expecting, I read those pregnancy month by month things. Was I actively filtering out the information about how bad it could get in a kind of denial/self-protection? I'd only vomited a few times in my life before I got pregnant, I didn't really know what it would be like to vomit every day. Maybe it's just impossible to realize until it happens to you? But that still doesn't explain why "and your teeth will possibly be permanently damaged" is never mentioned at all. It certainly comes up when discussing bulimia! But not pregnancy for some reason. I feel like what I read was mostly about things that indicated something might be wrong with the baby so go to a hospital right away, or something might be about to kill you so go to a hospital right away. Nothing less severe than that except as a sidenote)
(Btw I left out that if I do get pregnant I'd be doing so against the advice of my dentist... Although he dropped his "don't get pregnant" advice so casually I'm still not entirely certain it was serious or not, when I asked him what I could do about the acid damage to my teeth)
I also felt/feel totally blindsided by pregnancy and more specifically, postpartum, after having my first 5 months ago. I couldn’t walk for 3 weeks postpartum due to the pain and dizziness and I still can’t have sex without extreme pain. I just saw the GP due to the bleeding and pain after sex and was basically told “that sucks”. Seeing the pelvic floor PT is helping but, anyway, what I actually wanted to say is that I haven’t shied away from talking about my experience. We’re the first in my husband’s circle to have children and I don’t want any of the others to feel as blindsided as I did.
We were having a family meal a couple of months ago during which my husband was wearing the baby. One of the middle-aged women made a comment about how she wore her baby all the time and it was so helpful/nice and my husband replied that it was a shame I couldn’t do it. After which I admitted that the one time I tried I basically peed myself which was met with silence…so yeah, it does make people uncomfortable but I do think we should talk about it more.
Thank you for sharing (here and in real life). And I hope your continued recovery goes smoothly.
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I will second your observation that permanent health damage to the mother as a side effect of pregnancy is not much talked about in my circles. I mean, I occasionally read the Guardian (strictly for the Monday math puzzles), and while they certainly have a bee in their bonnet about women's health specifically, I don't remember encountering any articles on the body horror aspect of pregnancy.
If a medication had these side effects, it would either be banned or come with a big scary warning label, but for some reason, nobody has proposed legislating requiring the penises of fertile men to be tattooed "THIS ORGAN IS KNOWN TO THE SURGEON GENERAL OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE HEALTH PROBLEMS IN WOMEN INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ....".
Any theories as to why?
Amongst my friends, I know we sometimes don't talk about it if there's anyone struggling with infertility in the room, since it seems insensitive. But that doesn't really suffice to explain a strange seemingly culture-wide taboo. Especially as you mentioned in spaces where that kind of topic seems relevant.
I have weird pseudopsych theories like "people instinctively shy away from thinking about how much suffering they possibly caused their own mother" but I don't really take that seriously as a real explanation... and "it's a conspiracy of silence to keep the human race going" is pretty absurd... And something like "oh well it's a topic that makes people uncomfortable" just doesn't seem likely, there's plenty of topics that make people uncomfortable and yet get talked about.
I just feel like I walked into having a child fully aware that labor was painful — that I definitely was warned about, that everyone talked about birth plans etc, I said I'm an overplanner and I mean it, I was researching hypnobirthing and tens machines and all that stuff before I even went off BC — and yet somehow there was this giant, humongous, gaping, blind spot around the immediate and long term health costs of pregnancy that even now years later I just find baffling. I went to pregnancy classes and it didn't come up??? I spoke to doctors before I became pregnant about what I needed to do and know in advance and it was never mentioned?
To this day I still feel like it was treated as if anything short of being actually hospitalized just didn't matter.
(After writing all of this up I think "well maybe it's the sexism stupid" but is that really sufficient an explanation? Like yes I know feminists have been beating the drum about women's health being ignored, dismissed, and neglected and I know it's true, but is that alone enough to explain it?)
I think it’s because the only ones who know, have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by publicizing that information. First they don’t want to admit to themselves that they may have made a costly mistake, when it’s too late anyway. And even if they somehow avoid the psychological sunk cost trap, they realize the husband and children would only be sad to hear it. So the next time the subject comes up, they just mumble something about not wanting to have to buy a bigger car.
Generally, I think there’s way less people who say they regret having children, than there really should be. You’re already at disneyworld, you drove 8 hours for this, paid 400 dollars, might as well pretend everything is great.
Nah I don't buy that as adequate explanation.
At the end of the day, I have permanent tooth problems because of how much i vomited during pregnancy. I agree that I wouldn't discuss this with my child, at her current age, but I'm not unwilling to discuss it at all, see eg here. I very much regret not knowing, going in, that this was something that could happen, and for having walked into pregnancy with the totally mistaken belief I just needed to get through it and all the suffering was temporary (for one thing, I'd have dumped the doctor who didn't take my vomiting seriously and found a doctor who would prescribe me something to reduce the vomiting, if I'd known of the lifelong negative effects extreme repeated vomiting has. And I have an excuse for not knowing — why didn't my doctor? We're back to why women's health is treated as an afterthought in medical care, but then we have "even when discussing specifically women's health problems and specifically how they're neglected by the medical establishment we're still not talking about one of the most major medical events many women will experience before they hit old age, the one that will most massively negatively impact their long term health"
Like going back to my mention elsewhere of becoming pro choice as soon as I became pregnant — how is this not part of the discussion? All the prochoice activists can't mention the 25% odds a teen pregnancy ends with the teen girl now needing to wear special underpants for the rest of her life lest she pee herself in public? Oh she might have a psychotic episode from all the hormones, possibly one permanently affecting her for the rest of her life, but that's not at all relevant to the ethical debate we're all having here? Like ok maybe the pro-life people don't want to mention it because it doesn't help their case but I read SO much online debate about this topic and all the discussion about the right to choose and the right to control one's own body and aside from "sometimes you need to abort to save the mom's life" the idea of permanently physically harming the mother just never came up. Which is. Bizarre.
Ultimately, even pro-choice women mostly want humanity to continue another generation. So we have a volunteer military, and volunteer motherhood. If people stop volunteering, then that society deserves their slide into irrelevance and possible subjugation that will follow.
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If women don’t talk about it, and they usually don’t (you being an exception), then I don’t think you can pin the blame on men. Plenty of doctors are women, and besides, you can’t expect much from doctors. They have fixed categories they put people in, so they don’t have to think. Tell them a pregnant woman vomits often, nobody panics because it’s all part of the plan. But say that some undefined adult vomits often, well then everyone loses their minds.
As to why pro-choice feminists aren’t publicizing it, my guesses are:
they prefer to highlight damage they can attribute to men, rather than nature.
they don’t want to be limited to physical damage, they want the right to abort for any reason, including mere convenience.
I'm not blaming men, just noting them as a category of people not talking about it that doesn't fit "well it's because they regret having kids but can't say that so can't talk about it". Men have wives and see their wife go through XYZ during pregnancy but it seemingly doesn't get discussed during public discourse.
Your point re doctors is very true. Expected = irrelevant.
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There does seem to be a huge range in health outcomes, so that might be why it sort of gets tabooed. We have a neighbor in her early thirties that just gave birth to her 5th kid. She did it at home in a rental bathtub thing. She says her pregnancy was great, and aside from the discomfort of having a bowling ball in her uterus was otherwise totally fine. One of my wife's best friends growing up got a form of blood poisoning during the pregnancy and she died along with her second child.
My wife's pregnancies have slowly gotten worse and more difficult. We are both pretty sure we are done after our third just arrived a few months ago. Two of the pregnancies have been "geriatric" pregnancies, and the rates of complications start going up a frightening clip at these ages. For that reason alone I've become way more against more pregnancies.
You mentioned being in your lower thirties, my only advice would be to avoid geriatric pregnancies at all costs. If you think you'll really desperately want a kid later, then have one now instead. If you are already gonna be in geriatric pregnancy realm (35) I'd suggest stopping while you are ahead. 3 kids is great.
Just to insert a congratulations on the kid. I remember a discussion a while ago tangentially related and I'm glad it worked out well!
Thanks! and luckily the new kid has been great, chillest baby we've had.
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Yeah it does seem possible the range is the reason.
Your point about geriatric pregnancy is appreciated. It is something I keep in mind, as not "what number do we stop at" but "what age do we stop at". Also because of the increased concern for the child having issues...
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