After hearing multiple people say her caesarean section delivery “wasn’t a real birth,” an Australian mom decided to put to bed the myth that C-sections are “the easy way out.”
On May 11, Olivia White, who blogs at House of White, posted a postpartum photo of herself on Instagram.
“This is what you really look like a few hours post C-section,” she wrote in the caption. “To anyone who thinks it’s the easy way out, well try having a 6 inch gash in your abdomen like a gutted shark who had the body parts of the surfer it ate retrieved! That’s then sewn back together with fishing wire while it feels like your vital organs are trying to escape!”
White recalled the agony she felt after the pain medication wore off and in between doses she took after her two daughters’ births.
“And worst of all you’ll feel as if you’ll spend your entire life wearing nanna knickers up around your waist because the thought of anything settling in the canyon between your gut and pubic region is the stuff nightmares are made of,” she wrote. “Anyone who’s ever had C-section knows that you’ll forever be dependent on your friends Nancy, Dr 90210 and Spanx because you cannot for the life of you get rise of the ditch that is left by the scar.”
Though she dealt with physical pain and still has a “kangaroo pouch,” White said she wouldn’t change a thing about her two daughters’ C-section births.
“Because if it wasn’t for the ability to deliver my babies this way they might not be here today,” she concluded.
White’s post received over 1,800 likes on Instagram and over 3,500 on Facebook. Many fellow C-section mamas shared their experiences in the comments sections.
White has two daughters, 3-year-old Annabelle and 1-year-old Theodora. Both were born via C-section. The mom told HuffPost she was inspired to write the honest post after feeling fed up with hearing people say C-sections weren’t “real” births.
“Mostly, I just want people to know the reality of a C-section and make those who had C-section know they don’t need to defend themselves!” she said.
“It doesn’t matter how you birth a baby!” she added. “We are all mothers and we need to stick together.”
