Just be happy you got a healthy baby!

Often times when a mother feels cheated, hurt, disappointed, angry, or dare I say traumatized by her birthing experienced, her feelings are countered with the argument that she should just be happy she got a healthy baby. After all, that is the only thing that matters right? Sometimes her feelings are dismissed, ignored, or worse, met with resentment and hostility. She should count herself lucky and stop complaining. It never ceases to amaze me how cold, contemptuous, and lacking in compassion some people can be. They feel it's their duty to point out that she got a healthy baby as if she is somehow ignorant or ungrateful of that fact. They make a woman feel that by expressing any of the feelings and emotions listed above, she is not being a good mother, and quite frankly should just get over it.

I would like to take a little time to look at this situation from a different angle. I am quite fond of using analogies and thought of one I believe will help us garner a better understanding of why statements such as the ones above are wrong!

A woman has been planning her wedding for nine months with the help a Wedding planner she hired. The Wedding Planner was in charge of a great many details, two of which were very important to the bride: Acting as liaison between the bride and venue staff, and procuring a capable,professional, wedding photographer. On the day of her wedding, a great many things did not go as planned. The bride was prepared for unforeseen things to go wrong, like an unruly flower girl or bad weather, but not the negligence of the person she hired and entrusted with management of her special day. The Wedding Planner had failed to iron out all the details of the ceremony and reception start time with the venue and therefore, the wedding before the brides overlapped. Her guests were forced to stand around and wait 30 minutes before the start of the ceremony. The Wedding planner hired a very incompetent photographer in an effort to cut costs and so all of the services the bride wanted were not offered. Very few pictures were taken, and the photographer took very few candid shots as the bride requested, because he was more comfortable with posed shots. The communication between the florist and the wedding planner was minimal, as the planner, overbooked that month with other brides, had very little time for meetings. As a result, the decor was not as the bride wanted.

As the bride took stock of her wedding, looking at her poorly produced wedding photos and all recounting all the poor management, she grew angry and disappointed. The vision of how her wedding would be was destroyed and not because of some uncontrollable set of circumstances, but because of what her planner did or did not do. She complained to her bridesmaids, her friends, and family, who agreed that all of this could have been avoided had she hired a better, more competent wedding planner. Of course she had the right to complain, after all the planning and hard work, the person she paid to help her, ruined it. They joined her in her anger and offered their support and a listening ear. Not once did one person say to her; Get over it and just be happy you got a husband.