Deprogramming birth

While I was watching my mother give birth to my brother I resolved that I would never, ever have children. It was a wonderfully moving experience - witnessing my fifth sibling's arrival into the world - but the idea of something like that happening to my body was unthinkable. I was twelve years old and I still found it too painful to insert a mini tampon: a doctor's hand or a baby's head entering that sensitive passage, even far off in the future, was not an option.

That resolution stayed firm for many years but eventually, the infuriating prediction from smiling adults that I would 'change my mind one day' came true. A few hours after giving birth to a screaming bundle of joy and still numb from shock, I rang my mother from my hospital bed. "How did you do that seven times?" I blurted before even saying hello.

 I wasn't joking. Giving birth was more agonising than I could have imagined in my worst nightmares - I wouldn't wish that experience, that pain, on anyone. 

I began to see birth differently

That was four years ago, and in that time my perception of birth has changed completely. I am moved to tears when I hear women talk of their fear of childbirth or about the physical and psychological trauma they suffered giving birth or postpartum. Moving in mothering circles, I hear such talk often - but I believe that in many cases, having a baby doesn't have to be like that.

When I was pregnant with my second child I was tempted to plan for an epidural. But I knew that this would make the need for forceps, vacuum or caesarean more likely, and whilst I hated the labour and birth experience, I did appreciate after it not needing stitches, or morphine, or a catheter.

Deep down I had this sense that birth didn't have to be painful. This feeling went against my own experience and the experiences of most mothers I knew. It went against the way my culture portrays birth through television, magazines and in birth classes. It went against the bible that says labour pain is God's revenge on Eve for eating the apple. It went against even my own common sense.  Continued...