Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Janet's avatar

1. your first birth sounds a lot like my first - everything but the hot dog cart up there, as a friend put it.

2. sometimes your writing just gives chills it's so good, you sly old thing: "It was so long and exhausting that my son actually being born, a tiny hard pit being pried out of an unripened peach, felt like an afterthought." CLAIRE. <3

3. these perspectives are great.

Expand full comment
The Standards Department's avatar

Thank you, thank you for this. It's the first thing I've read in the 5.75 years since my son was born that I've seen something in writing that so accurately captures a lot of how I feel about his birth. I was a week overdue (and 41 years old, which up until that point had mattered very little to my jaded NYC doctors) and suddenly it was IMPERATIVE that I be induced. I was barely dilated, not effaced, and the general attitude was that my body wasn't working. I have no idea if it would have worked, but I got scared out of any more waiting for sure. A Foley balloon, pitocin, an epidural, so many hands and electrodes inside, my OB walking into my room and lamenting while watching coverage of Hurricane Maria on CNN that her vacation home might be ruined, and 24 hours later, I had a c-section. When they told me he was here, I barfed.

I have a lot of Feelings about the whole experience. I don't know any different, because I stopped at one, but I'm pretty sure it could have been at least a LITTLE better.

Expand full comment
65 more comments...

No posts