It’s Not Your Fault
If your “natural” birth didn’t go according to plan, it’s not your fault. It’s not. And your body didn’t fail you, our culture did.
Taken while I walking the Kabul City Wall in the Spring of 2007
We forget, I think.
We forget that the intention of Spiritual Midwifery, and the movement that followed it, and that continues today — was never, and still is not, intended to ensure that every woman has a “natural” birth.
What the hell is a “natural” birth any way? We have, in our cultural worldview, coined this phrase and embued it with shame. A lot of shame. And we don’t even know what the hell we mean when we say it. What do you mean when you say “natural” birth?
The intention, I believe, of Ina May Gaskin and those beautiful hippies who chose to give birth with her — was to give us a choice.
Choice.
Not shame.
Choice.
The point of these brave, pioneering women was to protect us from twilight sleep. To enable us to labor with whoever the fuck we choose to have in the room. The point was not to give us yet another reason to feel that we are not enough.
Preventing an “unnecessary intervention”, so importantly propogated by the Business of Being Born, is NOT intended to leave you feeling ashamed of a C-section that saved your baby’s life.
Preventing an unnecessary intervention is NOT intended to leave you feeling weak for choosing a God Damn epidural after you have been laboring your ass off for 40 hours, or one.
We have completely lost center here. To offer some perspective, what would you say to a litte girl in rural Afghanistan who watched her mother die after suffering a prolonged, and obstructed labor.
Would you say, “Well, at least she didn’t have to go to the hospital.”
No, you wouldn’t.
What would you say to a laboring woman who finally made it to the hospital after being carried by her family for 12 hours over a mountain pass? Would you say, “Are you sure you want the epidural?” No, of course you wouldn’t.
You would offer her anything you could to comfort her, and to save her life. You would. So why the hell are we feeling ashamed. Feeling like failures. Feeling like our bodies have failed us.
Because labor is hard enough.
And so is life — and motherhood.
And these bodies are fallible.
Some of us get cancer.
And some of us don’t.
Some of us have blue eyes.
And some have green.
Some of us get preeclampsia.
And some of us don’t.
However your labor goes — you made a God Damn human. And thanks to the brave women who came before us, you get to choose how, where, and with whom you bring that angel into this world. And that is the point.
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