Every woman responds differently to the stresses of labor and delivery. Some take pride in receiving no medications at all. Others are certain from the start that an epidural is for them.

For some women, labor is a painful experience to be endured and, they hope to forget it soon after, others consider it a profoundly moving experience, a rite of passage. Some will push with each contraction for endless hours; others will become discouraged and wish for the doctor to pull out the baby with forceps or do a cesarean.

Some exhausted women scream at their well-meaning husbands to get out of the delivery room and never come back. Some new mothers feel immediate love and affection for their infant; others, after hearing that their infant is fine, simply want to sleep for a little while. And most turn out to be wonderful, loving parents.

If your labor and delivery experience is not what you expected, it’s normal to feel bad, even guilty. If you go in hoping for a natural birth and end up with a cesarean, its natural that you might feel that somehow you were to blame (you weren’t) or that your baby will be permanently harmed by the experience (almost never the case). Many parents fear that if they are apart from their baby for the first hours or days bonding will permanently undetermined. That also is not true. Bonding, the process of baby and parent falling in love with each other, develops over months, not hours.

Essentially your response to the labor or delivery is natural and need not be enacted. Its something that comes from within yourself and any response is justified. You shouting at your husband due to pain is quite understood by him. You not wanting the baby immediately in your hands are also fine since its you who brought him into this world and hence you have the right to command things.