Absolutely love this. I found revisiting the patterns of all my rites of passage as a woman becoming was pivotal in my prep for birthing my second.
Revisiting my own birth and my mothers experience, the day I got my bleed, the first time I had sex, all pregnancies including miscarriage, the birth of my first son and then the birth of my second.
It was fascinating to see how I felt for each one and then how they all actually linked together.
Love how you’ve shared! I’m about to write and share my birth story here (3 weeks Postpartum) and I was similar to you, when I first started reading birth stories or listening, it was almost like a drug.
One of the
(Mostly)
Hidden mysteries and sparked SO MUCH curiosity for me
I really appreciate your thoughts here. I read Nelson's full review, and it made me even more eager to read Natality. That paragraph seemed so strange, and—like you said—I'm not entirely sure what she's trying to say. Having been trying to write *well* about birth for a few years, I do recognise the challenges she identifies, but they're not challenges unique to "birth stories" as opposed to love stories, war stories, stories about illness, death, ambition, etc etc. That's just the challenge of making good art. And I bristle at the way writing about the experience of matrescence often gets relegated to "mommy lit." Why is it that we assume the experiences of women wouldn't, or even shouldn't, matter to the rest of us? Her call for "reticence when all goes well" to me is simply another (common) challenge of art-making—it's hard to write well about joy. But it can (and absolutely should) be done—see Joy: A 100 poems (ed. Christian Wiman). Gosh, read "The Orange" by Wendy Cope. Anyway, thanks for thinking and writing about this. We'll need art about birth for as long as humans keep giving birth and being born.
This was wonderful to read. Birth is such a secret thing in our culture, which I’ve always found strange. I have five younger siblings, and I only know the details of one of their births (and, in that case, I only know those details because it was unexpected, terrifying, and required our whole family to be involved). We would always see my mother in the first stages of labor, looking pained and breathing hard, and then my parents would disappear and we’d hear nothing else about the labor, or the birth, or anything! This piece was a good inspiration for me to go and ask my mom more questions about her birth experiences. Thank you for writing it.
So beautiful ❤️ I just gave birth on Monday. Birth was incredible and not at all what I imagined it would be. I am so glad I was able to experience something so hard and amazing and now I can connect with other moms hearing about their birth stories ☺️ especially my own mom.
I agree with your rant/soapbox in your post, Amy. I'm an older mom, and I still love hearing and talking birth stories and cherish remembering and writing about how I got two humans out of my body and how the narrative has changed over the years. looking forward to receiving the second birth story.
Absolutely love this. I found revisiting the patterns of all my rites of passage as a woman becoming was pivotal in my prep for birthing my second.
Revisiting my own birth and my mothers experience, the day I got my bleed, the first time I had sex, all pregnancies including miscarriage, the birth of my first son and then the birth of my second.
It was fascinating to see how I felt for each one and then how they all actually linked together.
Love how you’ve shared! I’m about to write and share my birth story here (3 weeks Postpartum) and I was similar to you, when I first started reading birth stories or listening, it was almost like a drug.
One of the
(Mostly)
Hidden mysteries and sparked SO MUCH curiosity for me
I really appreciate your thoughts here. I read Nelson's full review, and it made me even more eager to read Natality. That paragraph seemed so strange, and—like you said—I'm not entirely sure what she's trying to say. Having been trying to write *well* about birth for a few years, I do recognise the challenges she identifies, but they're not challenges unique to "birth stories" as opposed to love stories, war stories, stories about illness, death, ambition, etc etc. That's just the challenge of making good art. And I bristle at the way writing about the experience of matrescence often gets relegated to "mommy lit." Why is it that we assume the experiences of women wouldn't, or even shouldn't, matter to the rest of us? Her call for "reticence when all goes well" to me is simply another (common) challenge of art-making—it's hard to write well about joy. But it can (and absolutely should) be done—see Joy: A 100 poems (ed. Christian Wiman). Gosh, read "The Orange" by Wendy Cope. Anyway, thanks for thinking and writing about this. We'll need art about birth for as long as humans keep giving birth and being born.
‘If it mattered to you, it could matter to all of us! Isn’t that how art works?’
Thank you for this. I needed to hear it. Art and birth, it all matters.
This was wonderful to read. Birth is such a secret thing in our culture, which I’ve always found strange. I have five younger siblings, and I only know the details of one of their births (and, in that case, I only know those details because it was unexpected, terrifying, and required our whole family to be involved). We would always see my mother in the first stages of labor, looking pained and breathing hard, and then my parents would disappear and we’d hear nothing else about the labor, or the birth, or anything! This piece was a good inspiration for me to go and ask my mom more questions about her birth experiences. Thank you for writing it.
So beautiful ❤️ I just gave birth on Monday. Birth was incredible and not at all what I imagined it would be. I am so glad I was able to experience something so hard and amazing and now I can connect with other moms hearing about their birth stories ☺️ especially my own mom.
I agree with your rant/soapbox in your post, Amy. I'm an older mom, and I still love hearing and talking birth stories and cherish remembering and writing about how I got two humans out of my body and how the narrative has changed over the years. looking forward to receiving the second birth story.