I’m glad her birth was easy and she was able to heal from any residual trauma from her previous birth, but damn does she come across as a smug cunt in that.
She isn’t a hero for having a “physiologic” birth. She isn’t revolutionary for giving birth on all fours. She isn’t amazing for breathing right or relaxing right or listening to music right.
People birth children EVERY SECOND of every day. Just in the time it’s taken to write this comment, at least 100 babies have been born. Some 9+ lbs, some tiny 6 lb’ers.
Some will have been born under C-section; others with epidurals. Some parents will have had major haemorrhaging, some will have had complications, and tragically, some may have died (parent or baby).
All were births.
And yes, some will have been dramatically more positive than others. Others will have needed medical intervention that deviated from any birth plans or previous notions of what birth “should” be, and that might’ve been terrifying.
But it isn’t the parent’s fault or the doctors’ faults or the baby’s fault. It isn’t because the people giving birth do some special magic thing; it’s chance. It’s luck.
I don’t have kids and never will, but I read Mel’s post and instantly felt shit about myself. I know that if I were to give birth, I’d be terrified and overwhelmed and miserable and I’d hate every second of it, and I don’t know how I’d cope with that (I don’t think I would). But it wouldn’t make me a failure.
And if I could think all that as someone who DOESN’T want/have kids, how bad would it be for someone who does?
I know someone who had a really tragic, traumatic birth that shaped their life ever after, and they couldn’t even talk about it. On the other hand, my mum had the easiest birth with me and she knows it was a fluke. My mum could easily have been in this other woman’s place and it wouldn’t have been because they didn’t try, or because they didn’t know enough about being *heavenly sacred earth mama queens*.
It’s birth. Medically, it’s messy. It’s random.
And it isn’t because Mel is revolutionary.
She isn’t.
So while that post alone doesn’t say it all, Mel’s overwhelming attitude to birthing (along with her arrogant distain for the doctors who helped the first time) definitely does. Of course, sharing your birth experience is great and it’s lovely to hear about a birth that went well.
But this is MELANIE, people. She’s thinking how great she is and how if more people just listened to her instead of Big Medicine, they’d all be hero mothers too.
I am 2 days PP with my first & I already don't know how I'm going to be able to sleep at night with her in the bassinet beside me knowing she is ok
thanks Mel, you absolute genius x
phd stress and infertility are a bitch
