The Beginning: A Little Backstory

As an undergraduate at DePaul University, in let’s say 2009, I had a science requirement to meet and therefore took the much-sough-after Women’s Health course. I somehow had the good karmic luck of having a Certified Midwife as my instructor. When it came to the time to discuss childbirth, this professor did something very smart: she had us watch the documentary, The Business of Being Born (watch this! Lake & Epstein, 2008).

This documentary exposed a lot of taboo facts about modern childbirth and its switch from natural methods to overmedicalized approaches, approaches that I think most women of my generation may find to be the standard, such as epidurals, elective C-sections, and pitocin-induced contractions. In other words, these are the births that make well-known hospitals brag about the amount of pregnancies they can manage in any given time span. But this documentary also showed that birth belongs to us, and it is something that bodies with uteri have been doing, in all mammal shapes and sizes, forever. Just like you wouldn’t doubt your body to go through puberty without medical intervention, we shouldn’t have to doubt our body’s natural ability to grow and thus, birth a baby.

I felt a shift, to say the least. I left class that day and called my mom with a very emphatic tone. I told her, “Mom, one day you are going to regain any empowerment that you feel you had to give away at my birth! (because I had been born with an episiotomy and forceps in a hospital setting). You are going to be there! And I am going to give birth naturally, in a tub, in our home!” Since I was exclaiming this from Fullerton Ave, she laughed and thought me to be a bit nuts, but that’s how I’ve always been: a bit nuts and non-conventional. I started to see midwives for my regular gynecological needs, and I started reading Ina May Gaskin’s work.

Well, here we are 10 years later, and I’m pregnant. And single. And I understand more than I did in 2009, I assume. I understand that all women everywhere do the best they can with what they are given. I understand that beautiful births can happen anywhere, in hospitals, birth centers, homes, even big school buses (a la the 1970s caravan of midwives, Gaskin, Spiritual Midwifery). I understand that modern advances in science can be truly life-saving. I also know that given all those truths, I still want to give birth in my apartment, with a midwife, as naturally and as blissfully as possible. And I have a lot of faith in it, not only because I am becoming a lot more in touch with my spiritual nature, but because I have read a lot about it, am coming from a background in Early Childhood Development and Pedagogy with years of interesting experiences, and I found three amazing midwives with Gentle Birth Care who will guide me through the process.

But here’s the thing: I don’t believe it’s just for me; I believe it is for you too, all of you. So, I want to use my baby’s birth united with my abilities to be a competent advocate to honor the pioneering women before me, collaboratively informing and empowering you, my fellow friends who are pregnant and those women after us who will surely get pregnant, to know our choices and have the opportunities, if we so wish, for more spiritual, more blissful, more orgasmic (what!?) and undoubtedly more natural birthing experiences.

I believe that storytelling is powerful; we have the right to share our birth stories openly. I also believe that by knowing our options, we can shape more profound experiences when it comes to our bodies. Whether the stories, research, and insights I share through-out this blog inspire you to have a natural home-birth, to connect you to those around you differently in your hospital birth, or to simply treat your body like the temple it is and your baby’s destiny as a very hopeful and light-filled energy, I hope my words do empower you, shape you, scaffold you, or invite you to share your voice aloud.

Namaste,

Katie

1/6/19

17 weeks pregnant

NYE 2018, 16 weeks pregnant

References:

Gaskin, I.M. (2002). Spiritual Midwifery. Summertown, TN: Book Publishing Company.

Lake, R. (Producer), & Epstein, A. (Director). (2008). The Business of Being Born [Documentary]. United States: New Line Warner Bros.