Another rant (no pictures)

I need to rant tonight, but I'm going to displace -- put the energy toward something other than what irked me today. Also, this is a long-standing issue for me and I... well... just want to rant. I read yesterday some words from a woman who, though she hasn't had a child, has very strong opinions on childbirth and such. That, for example, infant formula is awful and evil, and no woman who cares about her baby should touch it. And that a woman should never "just decide" to have a caesarean section and deprive herself and her baby of a natural childbirth unless it's absolutely necessary, and most c-sections aren't necessary but women let themselves get talked into them because they're ill-informed and scared and brainwashed by the medical system. This from a woman who considers herself radical, seeking alternatives to the oppressive mainstream view of childbirth and motherhood. "I would never JUDGE any mother," she insists, but....

I have to admit that I harbored similar opinions once. Then I bore a child and had to face reality. I used to rant about never EVER touching evil formula and why on EARTH would any woman not want to breastfeed. When Lazarus hadn't gained back his birth weight within two weeks and screamed when trying to latch on and I was horribly sore and chapped, I "caved" and started supplementing with formula. He took the bottle like he'd been starving the whole 16 days he was alive, and both bottle and breast feedings suddenly became peaceful. But I felt like shit about it, and started supplementing later than I perhaps should have, because I'd absorbed all the negative judgment against bottle feeding. I felt (and still sometimes feel) almost embarrassed that I didn't "stick it out." Even though my son is clearly thriving physically, mentally and emotionally.

I also used to rant about birth interventions, so of course I ended up getting induced and having a c-section. I still sometimes wonder whether I had a "necessary" c-section -- again, all the negative judgment weighs on me and makes me doubt my own judgment, which at the time told me Lazarus was possibly in danger because his heart rate kept dropping, and the last thing I wanted to do was lose him. "Necessary" or not, it's the decision I made at the time, fully informed because I'd taken Bradley (natural childbirth) classes and read whatever I could get my hands on, and it sucks that I feel compelled to question it sometimes because a cadre of people want to harp on the issue, supposedly in the name of what's best for mamas and babes. It's bad enough that those of us not following "convention" get judged from the right wing -- I'm used to it and can dismiss them as the assholes they are. But to get judged, directly or not, for choices I've made by people with whom I share many values and aspirations, well, that really sucks, and is also kind of isolating. Motherhood can be difficult and isolating sometimes, and all the more so when women start turning on one another in the name of what's "best."