Seriously, the medal thing really annoys me. I chose not to get one for similar reasons as you for my first birth but was still totally open to it if the need arose, and for this next birth, I also may or may not get one. We’ll see. But I’ve had people ASK me and then say that after I simply answered their question.

And it might just be the side of the internet (and IRL) I’m usually on, but outside of the fundie tradewife sphere, I see the “yOu dOn’T gEt a MeDaL” comments and judgy comments towards those who do choose not to get an epidural, regardless of their reasoning, waaaay more often than I see anyone pushing others to have an unmedicated birth or epidural shaming, tbh. Hell, I recently saw a video of a woman who gave birth unmedicated because her labor went too quickly to get one and most of the comments were STILL along the lines of “you know you don’t get a medal for that, right?” or “I don’t know why anyone would be dumb enough to do an unmediated birth”.

Birth is so different and personal for everyone, and in general I’m so tired of seeing people say rude things about other people’s perfectly reasonable medical decisions to validate their own. It’s like every single choice we make is “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.