There are two reasons for sharing my birth story in this particular way.

First, online discussions about birth are too often fraught with tension, either focused on quantitative details (length in hours, degrees of tearing, number of interventions, etc.) that can be used to compare/measure us against fellow moms; or devolving into endless debates with battle lines drawn on natural/medicated or vaginal/c-section grounds. Ultimately, though, we are all women who have experienced something at once unbelievably common and, at the same time, incredible: the growth of tiny people inside our bodies who are now real live people in the outside world. So I think we also need space for us to just share how that experience felt for each of us, without comparison or needing to identify our position on some ‘debate’ about motherhood.

Second, my central Scary Unknown the first time around was what labour would actually feel like, and I didn’t feel my childbirth ed class really covered it. Particularly, what might it feel like when the baby actually comes out, the precise moment when something that was the size of a beach ball under my shirt would actually exit my body? A reasonably terrifying prospect, but oddly, a memory which faded within a few months of the experience. I remembered all the quantitative and factual details that get retold endlessly to family, friends, and new fellow parent acquaintances, but I didn’t remember what the contractions or pushing actually felt like. Growing and delivering a child is the most awesome physical feat I have ever accomplished, and I imagine I’m not alone in this sentiment. It seemed a shame that I didn’t have any qualitative memories of what my body actually experienced.

(Heads up: The author knows she has a few friends who are uneasy with a lot of vag-talk, so if this is you and you don’t want to read descriptions of her reproductive parts, maybe skip this one.)

So with these two things in mind and my second delivery approaching, I decided to journal about my experience of childbirth – during my labour:  Continue reading →