Take Back Your Birth

Someone’s out there stealing people’s childbirths!!

That’s how I took it. There are people out there burgling women’s childbirths. Who do they think they are, marauding around snatching births? Is there a black market for childbirth? Is that where it’s going? Have any of them ended up on eBay? Has anyone checked? Maybe they weren’t stolen, just misplaced. Now don’t you feel silly? You went around squawking that someone had stolen your birth when you just accidentally left it in the freezer with your keys and cell phone. That’s Mommy brain for you.

Or is it more like it didn’t fit so you had to take it back?

Perhaps you’ve deduced by now that I am deliberately misunderstanding and even making fun of this issue. (I am.)

In case you haven’t heard, and I’m not at all shocked if you haven’t, the notion of ‘taking back your birth’ is the new catchphrase for the holistic natural birth phenomena. Prompting me to wonder just precisely who took it. I won’t go back into that.

From what it sounds like, the holistic women and midwives are suggesting that doctors and modern medicine are the culprits here, pumping unassuming mothers full of drugs and forcing them to give birth under the doctor’s preferred conditions instead of their own. These are the same women who believe that if a baby can’t survive an unassisted birth then it’s totally fine for it to go ahead and die. That those babies were just not strong enough to make it, natural selection you might say. I can’t help but think that those women, aside from being a little off, are in the minority.

Among these ‘holistic’ women pushing for you to take back your birth is once-famous, now not, Mayim Bialik, the spokesperson for Holistic Mom’s Network. Apparently, the only thing qualifying her to spout this propaganda is the fact that she’s had two kids. Wait—I’ve had two kids, and about to have a third...I need to be the spokesperson of something! I have reproduced. Clearly that makes me eligible to endorse stuff. Oh, wait, I can’t. The only other thing that gives Blossom any kind of credentials is that she starred in a series in the 90’s whose only contribution to society was the word “Whoa!” Oh, if only there was footage of me wearing a kicky hat at an awkward age. Actually there is. It was denim.

Never mind the fact that this woman is off her rocker, eschewing any type of life that does not revolve around her kids. What is going to happen when these kids grow up and no longer want their nutty mother trying to wipe schmutz off their faces with her organic saliva? She is going to go ‘round the bend. She will have forgotten how to live an actual life that has something to do with herself and not her offspring.

Let me just say, kids are great, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also live for yourself.

Somehow, to holistic moms, if you give birth in a hospital with any type of aid, you have failed. That’s right, baby. Big effin’ FAIL. It means your body mutinied and you LOST. You LOST your POWER. You should be ashamed. I know I am.

What’s the difference between a woman who delivered at a hospital according to plan and a woman who HAD to deliver at a hospital lest she die from bleeding out in her birthing tub in her rumpus room? Attitude. Mama A is happy to have a healthy child and that everything is cool. Mama B is smiling half-heartedly or even scowling at the fact that she didn’t get her way, never mind the healthy baby, and is maybe wondering if she can return a semi-used birthing tub.

Maybe they’ll take it back, too.

`This is right after I had Sully. I don't feel powerless here; I'm still kinda doped up.