Is it ‘Sad’ to Have a C Section?

I have been delivering babies for a long time. Four years in residency, twelve years in New York, and seventeen years in California. I have two entire walls in my office covered with baby photos, all wearing that special onesie that I give to my patients after their birth…the one that says “Special Delivery.” I have simultaneously loved and hated the specialty of obstetrics. It can be thrilling, amazing, scary, exhilarating, interesting, thought-provoking, and sometimes, overwhelmingly sad. I have always felt the good outweighed the bad, until recently, when staying up at night, dealing with increasingly higher risk patients, and my frustration at fighting with insurance companies to be paid fairly for my efforts have caused me to rethink the scales. I want to spend more time with my newly expanding family. I have decided that my days delivering babies are now numbered; in approximately six months’ time I will reduce my practice to women’s health care in the non-pregnant state only.

https://medium.com/@rebeccaobgyn/how-do-you-know-when-its-time-to-go-cbce63724b88

In these months before I retire my scrubs, I still have about 18 pregnant people to deliver. A delivery I did recently made me think about the things that we say to our patients: That it is their choice to have the delivery that they want. No epidural? Fine. Labor on hands and knees? Great. Have your…