Groundhog Day

Ever since my son Emil was born, I have been living a sort of Groundhog Day experience. It happened again this weekend, first at a birthday party, and then later, at home talking to my husband’s father and stepmother who are in town visiting the new baby. I have the same conversation repeatedly, sometimes with the same people.

But let me back up, and start with the birth, so that you will know where I’m coming from.

We had planned a homebirth from the start, because we live in the woods, at least half an hour from the nearest hospital, and I knew that this baby was going to come quickly. As it turned out, Emil was born before the midwife had time to arrive, after just two hours of labor and a few minutes of pushing.

It was a wonderful experience. I was in the bathtub, my favorite place to be, and my husband caught the baby while our two-year-old daughter Esme slept peacefully in her room. The midwife arrived soon after the birth, and checked to make sure that the baby and I were both doing well. Esme woke up in the morning and came into our room to exclaim, “Baby brother’s out!” It was like Christmas morning.

When I tell this story to people, I expect them to pick up on the fact that from my perspective, this was a wonderful experience. Much better than being at a hospital, where I had my first child. I felt like I was constantly fighting for my rights, forcing them to tell me what they were doing to me, having my doctor tell me to push when it wasn’t necessarily when my body was wanting to push. And then afterwards, having nurses wake me up what seemed like every 15 minutes to check my vitals when all I wanted to do was sleep.

But what people inevitably say when they hear Emil’s birth story is something along the lines of, “Oh my God! Weren’t you terrified?” When I convince them that, no, I didn’t have time to be terrified, they interject with, “Well, wasn’t Jacob (my husband) frightened?” And he answers that he didn’t have time to be scared either. We were both elated to be holding what was obviously a healthy baby boy.

I know, I know, I can put an end to this Groundhog Day by shutting up about the birth story and just smiling blandly when people ask how the birth was. But in a society where people view birth as a medical problem, it seems important to share anecdotes about positive birth experiences. It seems like women in our society are raised to think that they can’t go through this without major help in the form of painkillers and medical interventions and so forth. And yes, there are definitely times that those things are helpful and even necessary. But for a low-risk birth, a woman should have her confidence built on rather than have society feed her fear of a natural process.

So I will go on living my Groundhog Day and sharing my story, stressing yet again that No, we were not afraid. Yes, it hurt, but it was also a wonderful experience. Maybe someone will hear and get the message that birth doesn’t have to be viewed as a medical emergency but that our bodies were meant to do this.