birth

It felt like I was being knifed in the stomach. My husband suggested a shower. I grabbed him, looked him in the eye and said, “I know you’re trying to be supportive. But if you really want to support me, GET ME AN EPIDURAL NOW.”

Her birth turned my life upside down in the very best way a tiny human can; and through her, I’ve learned some of the most profound life lessons.
By “profound lessons,” I mean, “I have fucked up a lot of times.”

While people asking about our plan likely have good intentions, the conversation opens you up to so much judgment about how you’re planning to give birth.... Birth plans are personal, between parents and their care provider. We all make choices for our families that we feel are best, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

We compare birth stories like war stories. Twelve hours of labor, 32 hours of labor, three hours of pushing, we fall into the trap of trying to one-up each other. So yes, I can see why, to a parent-to-be who is enthusiastically anticipating pain relief, the refusal of an epidural might seem like a bit of a hero complex. And maybe for some people it is! But it’s none of your goddamn business.

Most of my friends are my age or slightly older and yet virtually none of them want children… ever. They argue that women deserve respect and autonomy over their bodies. I passionately agree. A few of these friends are, like me, engaged or married, but even they don’t want kids. One of my engaged friends says she and her fiancé may want to adopt children later in life, after they’ve had the chance to travel extensively.

One thing I cannot forget was how much I wanted to “get sick.” How I longed to get some sort of ailment or bedridden condition. I cannot forget how I prayed to become ill.

A simple flu shot would have changed everything. It would have saved my family and I a lot of heartache; it would have prevented me and my son from facing life-changing health effects; and it would have granted me all of the stolen memories from that time that I now can’t get back.

My initial reaction when I first heard about women who reported orgasms during birth was that they were lying braggarts — mainly because I was jealous I had never experienced this phenomenon. But since I’ve become a birth doula, [...] I’ve witnessed many women experience multiple orgasms during birth.