the trials of womanhood
I’ve recently given birth to my second child. Before the birth of my first child I read extensively about birthing options and concluded that the best route is to go as natural as possible i.e. no painkillers that could affect either the baby or my ability to naturally push. After all, we evolved successfully without using drugs during birth, and modern medicine would be on hand to intervene if anything went wrong.
I quickly realised during my first birthing experience that natural birthing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And speaking with friends who were much more forthcoming after I’d been through it, I struggled to find anyone who made me think any differently.
So when it came to the difficult decision to attempt having a second child, I was quite sure I would go for every pain relief on offer. But, oddly enough, when it came to the crunch and labour kicked in, I felt curiously confident that second time round, with my body already experienced and adjusted, and in a country where I trusted the healthcare system, everything would be just fine. It wasn’t.
The thing is, for me at least, although the pain of the contractions was absolutely excruciating, beyond anything I could have imagined, contractions taken in isolation were just about manageable. However, the ability of the human body to expel the child during these contractions is clearly variable and definitely not what what many of us are given to expect from the books we read, or the glossed over stories we hear from friends and family before the event.
What I felt intensely during those experiences was that I wanted to die, that I never want my daughter to suffer that kind of physical pain, that I didn’t want anyone ever to suffer that kind of physical pain. I feel intensely irritated with the feel-good literature about the beauty of giving birth and the lies about the body being built to cope naturally with the pain. I’m irritated that women are shamed into thinking they should be able to do it. I’m irritated for the many women who feel disappointed and almost embarrassed that they didn’t ‘manage’ a natural childbirth when things go wrong, as they so often do.
I think as a society we mask so many of the trials of womanhood. We don’t talk about periods, we don’t talk about miscarriages, we don’t talk about the horrors of childbirth, we don’t talk about the menopause. They’re all ‘women’ things to be discussed in private or quietly dealt with on our own. Women’s issues are seen to be embarrassing, unpleasant, emotional and private. And because we don’t talk about these things more openly as individuals and as a society, we’re slowing down the process of sharing knowledge, finding solutions, and simply feeling normal about whatever trials we’re unlucky enough to experience.
Excellent discussion point! Having seen first hand my wife endure 36 hours of natural labor, I can attest that it is worse than Christian hell. She is now 5.5 months along on our second, and determined to do it again. I don’t know if that is due to social pressure, as she gets more pressure to take meds from the people she knows than to be natural, it seems to be her choice, but ya…what is choice?
While I believe women indeed suffer in this life many times more than men, I must admit I feel just like you regarding the way society ignores many valuable facts that could alleviate many struggles we endure through open communication, but I see through the eyes of a male.
We may not talk about periods, but we also don’t talk about boners. We don’t tell our sons they are normal for getting an erection when they are visually stimulated. We let them feel like little perverts, a feeling that carries on for many through life.
At least for women they don’t really have social pressure to wear burkas anymore, if a man walked around in yoga pants with his package exposed, he’d be shamed.
How can we get people to talk about natural realities without shame attached? What a struggle.
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Thanks for your comment! I hope your wife has a better experience this time, regardless of what she chooses to do.
I suspect the answer to losing the shame is to be more explicitly conscious of the fact that we’re animals. We like to think of ourselves almost as superior robots. We’re just another animal, but one with more tools at our disposal to find solutions to aspects of our experience that are unpleasant or unnecessary. We should use them!
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I attempted a home water birth…it was my first kid and he was in a posterior position (back to back instead of front to back). My 2 minute long contractions where only one minute apart from the instant my water broke. After 7 hours of the worst, back-breaking, spine-snapping agony I’ve ever imagined, I had to fight my midwife to take me to the hospital where they gave me an epidural.
I would never, ever recommend natural childbirth to anyone. I feel totally fucking duped into it by all those fucking earth mothers who talk about it like it’s a wonderful thing. What a total load of horseshit. I think I use more swear words about my home birth experience than I do about religion, and that’s saying something.
As a wonderful side story, the birth tub leaked while I was at the hospital and flooded both floors of my house. I spent a week in the ICU after the birth, and came home to a house with both levels totally destroyed, ceilings and floors collapsed, and covered in mold like kudzu. Yeah, homebirth was NOT a beautiful experience.
PS Congrats on your new bundle of joy Violet!
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“I would never, ever recommend natural childbirth to anyone. I feel totally fucking duped into it by all those fucking earth mothers who talk about it like it’s a wonderful thing. What a total load of horseshit.”
That’s what I wanted to say! I’m totally brainwashed about it though because part of me still wants to support it. It’s just such a nice idea that it’s all natural and your body releases chemicals to deal with it and blah blah blah. Utter nonsense.
Obviously everyone’s experiences are different, and I do wonder if having babies later in life, when the body is past its biological child-making prime, is part of the problem. But if that’s the case then all the earth mother literature needs to acknowledge that women are choosing to have kids later in life, and have a veeeeeery low chance of having an even half pleasant natural birth.
“came home to a house with both levels totally destroyed, ceilings and floors collapsed, and covered in mold like kudzu” As if things aren’t difficult enough … nightmare!
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You could be right about the age thing…I gave birth at 39. I hope you’re feeling better Vi. Perhaps you should blog about the birth experience (you could keep it private if you wanted) just to help you process it. I was very traumatized over my birth for about two years, as I went into respiratory arrest during the emergency c-section and slipped into a coma. Birth can be more traumatic than women like to admit…for whatever reason we only ever hear about the pretty, easier births where nothing goes wrong. I always felt my story couldn’t be told because it was such a disaster. I know from experience that silence makes it all worse, so if you can’t write about it, be sure to talk about it with someone. Hugs to you and your little one.
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Wow, I’m not surprised you were traumatised for two years, that’s a horrendous experience from start to finish. The flood is just the final, ironic and depressing, slap in the face.
I was definitely traumatised after my first child, but I was fully conscious of it, and shared the gory details with everyone. It was like I had to consciously relive every detail for weeks and months after just to process it. And believe me, it wasn’t a patch on what happened to you.
The second birth I described as traumatising in the days and first weeks following it. It wasn’t as bad an experience as the first, and I’m interested to note that already I don’t feel that way about it as a memory, only when I remember the words I said, if that makes sense. That’s the weird fading of real birth memory that I notice other women having, and that’s one reason why usually we don’t quite get the full story. Of course, the other is that we don’t want to scare other women unnecessarily when we have no idea how their birth could go.
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Congrats on the newb!
Sorry to hear you had such a rough go of it. Thanks for sharing, though – it was an interesting an informative read.
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Thanks!
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“I felt curiously confident that second time round – Neuro will be quick to tell you, as she has me, that, “denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
One thing you left out, but which I feel is worth mentioning, is the loss of virginity, the rupture of the hymen. As a male, I have no concept of this. Some say it is painful. Others say that with patience, the woman feels no, or little, pain. I will never know. All I DO know is that I have made love with two virgins, and neither expressed having experienced any pain – was that due to the extra care I took, or were they only being kind? I will never know.
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It wouldn’t register anywhere near the same scale of pain as miscarriage and giving birth, and, for many, period pains. Also it’s completely limited to one moment rather than across hours or years. But I guess it is another shitty thing we have to put up with that men are lucky enough to avoid.
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An interesting topic for a post, I think. As a woman, I have no concept of the rupture of the hymen. It is filled with myths, and where do they come from? OK we won’t go down that road but it really is a load of religious tosh ie blood on the sheet etc.
I had no pain either, although the whole thing was somewhat disappointing. The heavens did not explode.
And Violet is right, period pains can be hellish. The things you do to alleviate pain, and don’t do to avoid it in the first few days. I felt as though I was going to pass out many a time. Going on the pill helped.
Probably more than you wanted to know 😀 but it’s interesting to be able to discuss it. Somewhat later in life …
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“OK we won’t go down that road but it really is a load of religious tosh ie blood on the sheet etc.” – Sorry to say, that’s not entirely so throughout entire the female population – my first wife left blood on the sheet.
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Sorry I wasn’t clear, meant the blood on the sheet was a symbolic thing, that virgins were meant to leave blood on sheets but that isn’t always the case. Some obviously do.
I should be asleep but I’ve had a bad day so I apologise for any incoherent comments.
Anyway, not all virgins leave blood.
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Thanks for sharing and I hope it’s not late to say congratulations
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I’m sure you already did. But thanks anyway! 🙂
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I demand to be doped up to the eyeballs just to have my teeth done, so you can appreciate what advice i would give when faced with certain pain.
And yes, women’s business should be discussed at length, and honestly. A tremendous amount of confusion arises because it is not understood, especially by men.
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“A tremendous amount of confusion arises because it is not understood, especially by men.”
Agreed. But I also think it’s true that there’s confusion for women too. For example, so many women have miscarriages, no-one talks about it until you’ve had one, and then only in hushed tones. And no-one talks about how physically atrocious they are. It becomes a more emotionally traumatic experience in my opinion because its not widely discussed that lots of fertilised eggs simply don’t grow.
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Absolutely. I have a great article here (somewhere) on miscarriages. I sent it to my sister-in-law a while ago when she suffered one and was so thankful to read something so honest about it all.
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Sounds interesting, pass the link on if you can find it. I was lucky that I watched some Jennifer Aniston film about a dog (Marley and me?) before my first pregnancy. She gets pregnant in it and goes for her first scan only to find there’s nothing growing. I hadn’t heard of that kind of silent miscarriage before but when we went for our first scan and only had an empty sack on the screen, at least I was aware what it meant. Although ‘silent’ miscarriage is a bit of a misnomer, because there’s still the excruciating pain and horrors of all the blood and tissue loss to go through. I ended up in hospital for two miscarriages and the pain and blood loss is (or was in my case at least) phenomenal. I can’t imagine how horrific it is for people who are totally desperate for children, and those who get more emotionally invested at the start of the pregnancy.
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Violet, I’m going to give you the link to my birth story…when I was in psychological trauma after my son was born, it helped me to read about other women who also did not have the typical beautiful birth scenario. Use your judgement on whether or not a disaster birth story will be helpful to you, cuz this one ain’t for the faint of heart. It’s not my most well-written piece, and I don’t want to go back and edit it because I just tend to relive the trauma. See it here if you feel up to it: https://thereisnorainasd.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/the-traumatic-birth-of-my-son/
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Thanks for the link, it’s a really interesting story. And truly awful.
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I read that too, absolutely frightening.
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Congratulations on your new baby 🙂
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That’s odd, no Bible quotes? 🙂
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LOL! I only post Bible quotes when I am led to, & only when someone talks about the Bible. I don’t always talk about the Bible. 🙂
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Apart from the fact that Kids were not Us, the thought of pregnancy and childbirth freaked me out anyway. Uf.
And, like you, if I had gone down that road, I would have wanted home birth, water bath all the rest of that beautiful experience 😉
My mother was in her mid 30s and apparently sailed through beautifully and I dutifully popped out. My sister-in-law described it as shitting watermelons.
More honestly two colleagues in their late 30s at work, described it as hellishly painful. Yet, they both went on for a second go. Pretty much like you.
Anyways I’m looking forwards to your posts on losing your virginity and period pains re the Arch convo. And you haven’t even arrived at the menopause. Maybe I should write that one up …
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I don’t believe my mother’s stories, I think she rose tints all her memories. And after the second birth, which was horrendous in the moment, I can now see how I could grow to view it as an amazing experience.
There was something on the news the other day about a women going round businesses explaining the effects of the menopause to mainly young and male bosses, so they understood what their staff may be going through. I think it’s treated as a joke, but some women obviously have very severe symptoms. I always thought the hot flushes sounded like fun, because I love being warm and sweating doesn’t bother me. However, in the first few weeks after giving birth I woke up through the night (in the precious moments of sleep) drenched in sweat, so much so I had to keep a towel by the side of the bed and change my clothes. The midwife told me it’s just hormones – a little taste of what menopause hormones bring you. Hot flushes don’t sound like so much fun now. Is/has yours been okay? I think you should do that and the virginity post. I’ll do one if I can find a religious angle …
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“I think you should do that and the virginity post.” – I really think someone should, as there are things about women that, regardless of their degree of experience, most men know little about.
Some years ago, I was researching the hymen, and one doctor seemed to find many ways of reiterating that in the case of young girls, it has been known to grow back. In fact, in his article, he said it so many times, and in so many ways, I began to suspect his motives.
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It’s actually a difficult topic to even think about writing. Unless you make it clinical, it becomes personal and it’s certainly one of the most intimately personal experiences a woman goes through. Add to that all the hype about sexual attraction, objectification, peer group pressure and it’s very difficult to decide how to pitch it. Or the other extreme is, ‘How was it?’ And the answer could well be, ‘At least I’ve got that out of the way.’
I’d be happier writing about cervical screening, as at least I can add clinical knowledge to the personal for that one. I’ll wait for Violet 😉 there’s no shortage of quotes about virgins in the bible.
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https://insanitybytes2.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/childbirth-and-plain-speaking/
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So nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to pop by and advertise your blog. It’s a pretty good post apart from the last couple of paragraphs.
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Insanity, you said “a near death experience is beautiful.” Have you ever actually had one? Because I have…I died on the table during childbirth (stopped breathing) and there was *nothing* beautiful about it. I was a devout catholic at the time and wouldn’t you know, jesus and the white light didn’t even have the decency to show up.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but those last two paragraphs make me ill. You’re really going to go there and talk about God using childbirth to teach women submission? Like women don’t have enough lessons on submission already? Just, just…NO!
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“jesus and the white light didn’t even have the decency to show up. – Hey, traffic was bad and they were running late! Whaddaya want?
(You DO know that IB is not well – speak to her in words of one syllable –)
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I’ve never met Insanity before tonight, no. She does have a post about being “near death” after blood loss during her first childbirth. There was heavenly music playing and angels in the corners of her hospital room. Except she was *conscious* (while I was unconscious), so I guess that helps. Or maybe god just liked her better than me. 😉
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Suffice to say that she comments regularly on “ColorStorm’s” blog – https://thenakedtruth2.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/are-you-serious/ – inspect, investigate, and decide on your own the propriety of the word, “Insanity” —
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Wow…thanks for the link. I was able to make it through one whole post before my brain liquified and shot out my ears. Being that I was a psych nurse for over a decade, you’d think I’d have a solid grasp on the word “insanity,” but I see there are other connotations to the word I hadn’t before considered.
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Don’t blame yourself – no one in their right mind is ever prepared for Colorstorm’s blog. He holds all of my comments in “Moderation,” and deletes the ones that don’t agree with him, so I have taken to posting to on a friend’s site, from Kenya – Onanygo Makagutu, or “Mak” —
On Colorstorm’s blog, he has objected to John Zande’s comment (an Australian living in Brazil) that CS’s god was an “it.” On Mak’s site (https://maasaiboys.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/on-hate/), I asked him that if his god was male, what use he had for a penis – he sends his Holy Spook to impregnate little 14-year old Mary, and if he had need to urinate, that would imply that he drank, and consequently could be in danger of dying from dehydration, which really wouldn’t be very god-like. If he had no need for a penis, then “he” could only be a she or an it. Unless he could demonstrate his god’s need for a penis, I, choosing to be on the safe side, would be forced to refer to his god as an “it.” It’s been 36 hours, and I’m still awaiting a reply.
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I met and had some contact with Mak last week, regarding a ridiculous christian post which stated that god was not a mental construct, but money and Africa WERE mental constructs. It was a hysterically funny thread and I laughed all day over it.
I shall check out the link you provided and enjoy further humor.
I’ve been introduced to some of the most interesting and crazy characters here on Vi’s blog…she really knows how to attract a diverse group of people. Half of them are totally insane, but who am I to judge…I used to be a catholic!
Have a good night Arch…thanks for the entertainment!
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“I’ve been introduced to some of the most interesting and crazy characters here on Vi’s blog…she really knows how to attract a diverse group of people.” – I think most of us are here because she said there would be cake —
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Yeah! Damn straight.
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Insanity’s blog is great. You should hang out there, I really think you two could hit it off. I’m disappointed she hasn’t come back to reply to your comment here, but what could she say?
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Yeah, we’d hit of off alright! Having further conversation with Insanity might lead me to break your blog’s rules of politeness, and then you’d have to ban me. That comment I made to her above…that was *extremely restrained.*
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Oh don’t worry, I never ban anyone. 🙂
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Oh good. In that case …
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