We believe a story we’re told about birth. We believe that it’s possible for it to be perfect. We envision soft light, warm water, peaceful music, and a baby emerging into that space, taking its first breath earthside. We hold in our minds a detailed picture of how we’ll feel through labor and delivery. How supported we’ll feel, how powerful, how held. We have seen the pictures of that golden hour in all its glory, and we want that to be our experience.
I wanted that perfect birth. I gave birth to my first son by cesarean section and felt disappointed about the way he came into the world. Starting at about six weeks postpartum, I started to plan for having a second child via VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). I believed that the perfect birth was possible. I envisioned it, I prepared for it, I did all the things that everyone told me would give me the birth I wanted.
When it didn’t happen, and my second son was born by cesarean too, I felt like I’d failed. I had to accept—and grieve—my inability to control the outcome of my second son’s birth.
I believed that the perfect birth was possible. I envisioned it, I prepared for it, I did all the things that everyone told me would give me the birth I wanted.
Some women do experience birth in the way so many of us envision. Many women do not. But we, for some reason, believe the standard has been set and that our worth as mothers hangs in the balance. We believe that if we can birth in a certain way, then we have “succeeded.” And for many of us, that success is a mark of validation as parents. If we can do birth right, maybe we’ll be OK at this parenting thing too.
And when that doesn’t go as planned, it can be devastating. It was for me.
When my second son was born from my belly instead of the VBAC I’d planned, I grieved, and still grieve, the loss of what I thought I could have had. Instead of being able to cherish the beauty of those first moments after each of my son’s arrivals, I felt like they were taken from me and exchanged for bright lights, surgical tools, and medical assistance.
My belief that I’d failed made me lose sight of all of the beautiful and redemptive elements of my birth experience: all of the support I had, all of the experience of labor, all of the peace of postpartum.
When my second son was born from my belly instead of the VBAC I’d planned, I grieved, and still grieve, the loss of what I thought I could have had.
The truth is that every birth will have parts that hurt and felt difficult, and parts that felt beautiful and inspired. Each birth will have elements that were redemptive and powerful and stages that felt disappointing or even frightening. I had a really beautiful labor with my second son. I labored at home until it was time to go to the maternity clinic where I planned to give birth. I had the support of my husband, my doula, and my midwife. I had the opportunity to labor in the shower and in the bath. I felt safe and held throughout my labor, a contrast to the birth of my first son that felt overwhelming and out of my control. I was able to stay present throughout my labor, aware of where I was and who was with me. These gifts and experiences were truly redemptive, even if my second son’s arrival into the world was not what I had hoped.
Now, in retrospect, where I think I was led astray is in thinking that birth is something to achieve. We have been mistaken in assuming it is something we can take on and control. Instead, it demands surrender. Birth pushes us to the very edge of ourselves, into a space of complete and utter vulnerability, where we are exposed to pain we have never felt before, fear we have never known, and a sense of overwhelm that comes in the same surges as our labor pains. The struggle itself is the sacred space where we shed our old self and become something new.
Perfection in birth, as in parenthood, is an illusion perpetuated by our fear. The responsibility of parenthood is truly terrifying in its immensity. We know, in our bones, just how much is riding on all this, from the moment we feel our baby move in our belly and the moment they first lie on our chest to each of the milestones and moments we face as they grow. We want desperately to get it right. We want to start off right, in birth, with the first moments of our baby’s life beautiful and untainted.
The struggle itself is the sacred space where we shed our old self and become something new.
But children come into the world on their own terms, they give in completely to the power of nature and to two bodies working together as one. They invite us to surrender, in birth and in parenting, so that we can find the strength to face each challenge and, in so doing, discover our own power.
I think we know, somewhere in our deepest selves, that something is wrong with the story we’ve been conditioned to believe. That the shame and failure we feel about the ways our bodies perform has roots in misogyny and patriarchy. I think we know we are coming up against a system that thrives on that shame. But shame cannot tolerate being spoken, and as birthing people who have experienced the very edges of ourselves in unexpected and imperfect ways, our stories matter. If we are to believe that we did not fail, if we are to believe that there is no failure in birth, we must speak our stories with confidence, knowing that because we embraced surrender and the mystery of birth, we are forever changed.
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