When I first got pregnant, the first image that popped into my mind was a scene I used to draw as a child of two mountains next to each other, with a sun peeking right in the middle. It was probably because it looked a lot like a woman giving birth vaginally. It made me smile. I filed that thought away as my official birth plan. Unfortunately, pregnancy can be an unpredictable thing. Midway through my pregnancy, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and was told to keep the option to have a c-section on the table. We waited until my 36th week ultrasound to verify my baby’s size, during which it was confirmed: I was having a whopper of a child who, at only 36 weeks old, already had the head and the belly size of a baby at 40-41 weeks old.

My husband and I told our parents about the news and how the size of our baby completely changed our plans. Instead of delivering vaginally without drug intervention with the guidance of a doula (we'd learned about doulas in Lamaze class and we thought it would be cool to get extra help on Birth Day), we had to seriously consider scheduling a c-section at 39 weeks.

My in-laws were mostly sympathetic that we weren’t going to have our Dream Delivery Scenario and assured me that everything was going to work out the way it’s meant to, and that my baby and I would come out of this experience both healthy and happy. My parents, on the other hand, were a lot more cynical, and it made me feel like crap.

Read the whole article here:
https://www.romper.com/p/i-was-shamed-for-scheduling-my-c-section-by-my-parents-29499

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https://www.romper.com/profile/jam-kotenko-1907810