The book that helped me with my fear of giving birth

As you may know, I’m a bit obsessed with births. But this obsession doesn’t necessarily come from a happy place; in reality, it comes from fear.

I’m a big believer in our capacity to transmute pain and fear into beauty and growth, and this is exactly what this book I’m about to review brought to my world. Back when I was starting to question myself about motherhood, one of the things that was high on my “No, hell no” list was PAIN.

The pain of giving birth.

The screams, the tears, the blood, and the poop.

All of us have grown up with horror stories about birth. We see them in the movies, we hear stories from our grandmoms, we read them in books, we see them on social media; I mean, it’s everywhere because the pain of birth is even in the bible! So naturally, we will be afraid of the unavoidable pain that comes our way when we get pregnant.

This is exactly why we need to expose ourselves to the opposite: the stories of success.

The stories that include all of the pain, but that also include the inner voice of women going through it. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth is a beautiful book divided into two parts: The first part is a compilation of stories of physiological births with almost no intervention (and certainly without an epidural); and the second part is the portrait of the traditional knowledge of a midwife against the overmedicalization of birth in hospital settings (studies with scary numbers are cited)

During the first half of the book, you can read 44 stories of women going through labor and delivery. Some of them are two pages long, but others are up to 10. The author decided not to cut any part of their narrations, and I think this is a beautiful practice. She provided a safe space where their stories were unedited and limitless.

I’m talking about women expressing their surprise when they had an orgasm during childbirth; I’m talking about women addressing the way pooping and vomit helped them feel better; I’m talking about women telling us how visualizations helped them expand physically to give birth, and others that tear but didn’t mind. Some of them express things in a very clear and direct way, but others express it as if they went through a spiritual awakening experience. This book is the proof that whenever you give women a safe space to talk, they WILL talk.

The second part of the book is a more difficult conversation, because now we start to deal with reality. Sadly, the reality is that 50.8% of women are to experience a form of obstetric violence when they give birth in a hospital, and Ina May is very clear on that. Some people think that she was creating a cult of white women giving birth on a farm. But I believe she was giving women an option to do things on their own terms, and on some occasions even a second chance to overcome trauma. I also believe that in North America, the medical interventions have become a norm instead of being a needed tool to save lives, so of course when someone like Ina May goes against that tendency, they will be criticized and ridiculed.  

If you read this book, and if I can offer one piece of advice, let it be this: Take it easy, and be very gentle with yourself and the decisions that you have made up to this point.

This book was written back in 2003, and things have improved since then. Nowadays we have more access to information; there are more people devoted to supporting families during birth (like me!). Nurses and hospitals are starting to slowly change their ways of treating births, but the most important thing is that now you know that this is a reality, and that you have the power to advocate for you and your baby.

Your dreams and wishes are not there just because; they are there to guide you on how to bring life to this world on your terms.

So voice out your dreams and wishes; you can express them however you want: A checklist, a whole paragraph, a painting, or a repetition of ideas with your partner.

Voice them out, find a way to be heard.

You are an active and necessary part of the change, so the way you give will be born as a mother matters. Your story, as well as all the stories written in Ina May’s book, have the power to change the future narrative we have surrounding birth and women’s strength.

You have the power to change the world with your rebirth