My daughter, Thea, was born at 2:56 a.m. in a hospital operating room under bright fluorescent lights, and her cry was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I labored unmedicated for nearly 20 hours and then began pushing for three unending hours. Most first-time moms push for a maximum of two hours — some only push for 15 minutes or less. I never had pain meds or interventions, regardless of how much I may have wanted them.
After trying everything we could to get baby to keep descending, it was clear she was stuck. In a moment of extreme clarity, something in me told me she wasn’t going to fit. We weren’t seeing any progress, so we walked through the options with our doctor. A C‑section was the only answer left. An hour later, they pulled my daughter out, precious in our eyes despite her misshapen conehead from the agonizing time she was wedged into my pelvis. Her entrance into this big world was no less miraculous because of how she was born.
I hesitate to share my birthing experience. Do I think I had birth trauma? Perhaps (just wait until you give birth, you probably will too…it’s called labor for a reason). But, I have dwelled on the trauma far less than I have delighted in the presence of my daughter. Was it, perhaps, possible for her to be born naturally? Maybe. Have I felt birth shame? Absolutely.
Merely days after Thea was born, I shared the fact that I had a C‑section with a friend. The first response I received was “you can always try for a VBAC, I guess.” Another mom skeptically asked how my birth was without a doula, and then outrightly booed me when I disclosed my labor ended in a Cesarean. I have seen eyebrows raised and my doctors scoffed at, as if my daughter’s birth was a case of malpractice, despite this being the correct and necessary choice for both mom and baby.
I entered my pregnancy determined to learn all I could about achieving a natural birth. I took a natural birth course, I declined every unnecessary intervention, I ate all the right pre-labor foods and did all the right pre-labor exercises. My doctor, nurse-midwife, and nurses were in complete support of my desire to have a natural birth in the hospital without an induction or intervention of any kind. They were supportive of this desire even with the knowledge that I had two former hip surgeries and two major abdominal surgeries during my pregnancy.
I am not against home births. I am not against natural births. I am not against hospital births, clearly. Every mom should have the opportunity to seek out the birth she hopes for. I simply want to bring our attention to one glaring fault in the argument for natural or home births as the supremely superior type of birth — that, as women, this is “what our bodies are made to do.”
Have we so quickly forgotten the curse? “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” (Genesis 3:16). Historically, childbirth has been the leading cause of death for women, though outcomes have improved significantly with modern medicine. The Fall has attacked this very thing: childbirth. The Fall has cursed pregnancy with uncomfortable whale-ishness, it has cursed postpartum minds with depression, and it has cursed labor with excruciating pain and — yes— failure to give birth as we intended. As much as we can hope our bodies will do “what they are made to do,” the natural design is fatally marred. No matter how much you may will your body to do it, as I did for those three hours with every fiber of strength, it just may not be possible.
By all means, try for a natural birth, enjoy your homebirth, surround yourself with the most knowledgeable birth team you can, know all your options, and be convinced of what you want. But enter sober-minded in the reality that your once-made-to-birth body has fallen under the curse of this bitter earth, until one day our bodies will be redeemed and perfected. To God be the glory that despite this harsh truth, our bodies bear his children regardless. We participate in the simply miraculous act of being co-creators — no matter how our children are born.
