Unfortunately, moms can still get shamed for everything they do and don't do. After realizing just how many people think that giving birth via a c-section is the "easy way out," mom blogger Olivia White decided to post a photo of her post-surgery scars to prove that, yes, c-sections can be just as gnarly as natural births.
"This is what you really look like a few hours post c-section," she wrote in the caption of a (slightly graphic) Instagram photo. "To anyone who thinks it's the easy way out, we'll [sic] 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!"
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"Look I know it might not be my best angle (or is it?)" she wrote. "but who wouldn't take selfies hours post birth so they can see where they sliced you open and yanked out a whole person (if you couldn't tell I still couldn't see past my still inflated uterus)."
Giving birth via c-section counts as a birth just as much as a natural birth does — but there's still so much stigma around c-sections that actress Kate Winslet admitted she lied about not having one.
White recalled the pain she went through after her medication wore off during labor, writing, "it's like you've been hit by a bus which then backed over you just to make sure it didn't miss you the first time! If you don't time the Endone exactly before the previous lot wore off then you will most certainly know you are alive (while wishing you were dead)."
Despite that, she doesn't regret any of it — she just wanted to open up about her experience to show everyone the reality of a c-section.
"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 told The Huffington Post. "It doesn’t matter how you birth a baby! We are all mothers and we need to stick together."
We 100% agree.
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