When It Comes to Childbirth, Women Need Choices, Not Judgement

Women love birth stories. We love to hear how what seems like one body becomes, within a matter of hours, two, through the crazy and beautiful process of childbirth. It’s no surprise then that when we’re preparing for a birth of our own, especially our first, that we so eagerly seek out other women’s stories and advice. Through them we learn about different choices we can make when it comes to our own stories.

In this digital age, we can consume more of these stories than ever before. Not only that, we can group the choices we want to make for our birth into convenient categories that can feel like joining an exclusive club — natural birth, home birth, water birth, or the most extreme, freebirth — and follow social media influencers who preach about the importance of every small decision we’ll make along the way. 

Our constant exposure to these romanticized standards makes them feel accessible when often they are not. So what happens when the story of birth becomes more important than the mother and baby? What happens when our judgement of the choices a woman makes in birth overshadow the miracle of new life? While many of these online movements seem to aim to empower women, by exclusively promoting and glorifying only one way of giving birth that may not be accessible for all women, they leave many new mothers on the sidelines, feeling less-than and judged. 

In reality, giving birth is one of the few true adventures in life — despite whatever planning you may do in advance, you really can’t control or predict how everything will go. And by the end of it, you can be sure you’ll be transformed. Giving birth is as incredibly vulnerable and personal as it is profound and powerful. What women need when it comes to childbirth isn’t judgement of how they measure up to a certain trend or influencer’s opinion, it’s the ability to make their own choices and be the heroine in their own stories, whatever detours, wrong turns, or unexpected avenues they take. 

I say this with humility because I’m still learning to see myself as the heroine of my own birth stories. My first was so dramatic (and traumatic) that when I started care with a new midwife for my second baby, she had already “heard of me.” 

My First Birth Story: The Beginning

When I got pregnant with my first son, I knew nothing about childbirth other than that it was painful and that it would ideally end with a baby in my arms. So, like anyone else who finds themselves to be on the “crunchy” side of things, I began to research everything about birth and, in particular, what it meant to have a natural, unmedicated one. I watched The Business of Being Born, took an online birth course, watched countless YouTube videos, did prenatal yoga multiple times a week, and followed influencers on social media who promoted things like home birth, water birth, and avoiding medical interventions during childbirth. The idea that birth was natural, something that as a woman I was born to do, was inspiring and made sense to me.

I soon felt that giving birth in a hospital would put me on defense, having to say “no” constantly while trying to focus on relaxing and pushing my baby out without pitocin, epidurals, or forceps. This, combined with the impersonal care I was receiving at the time, led me to switch my prenatal appointments and birth location to a birth center in the Twin Cities, where I live. I loved the fact that whenever I called the birth center I reached a human being, that I would get to give birth in a comfortable room in a house with a nice bed and a huge birthing tub, and that there would be no interventions pushed or, for the most part, available. It looked like a dream, it sounded like a dream, and it turns out — it was all a dream. At least for me. 

The first crack in the facade came early in my labor. I started contractions in the evening and had 24 hours of early labor with one restless night. Our doula from the birth center’s doula training program came to our house to help time and manage my active labor contractions. When we reached the 5-1-1 mark, meaning my contractions were five minutes apart, lasting about a minute, for one hour or more, I called the birth center. As we spoke, the nurse questioned me, saying if my labor really had progressed as far as I said it had I wouldn’t be able to speak on the phone. If you’ve ever been in labor, you’ll know that little seeds of doubt about your own ability and body work against your mental and physical capacity to move everything along. But fair enough, she was the professional and I have always been good at masking my own pain. 

They did agree to let us drive the 20 minutes to check my dilation at the birth center, but since I was only at 4cm, they sent me home. Fast forward a couple more hours of home labor and we drove back to check again. This time I was already 8cm dilated, so they let me stay. 

The next few hours were a blur as we tried this position, then that, then the other. I was hoping for a water birth, so they filled up the tub for me and I labored in there for a while before trying the shower, different positions with the ball, and the birthing stool. By 11pm, I was at 10cm and ready to push. The midwife, nurse, and nurse intern kept telling me I was strong and that my baby was so close. My water broke on the birthing stool, but it didn’t feel like my son was any closer to me and the pain was incredible. Something was feeling different than the effortless, gorgeous water births I had seen online. 

The Subtle Judging Eye of Social Media 

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that what you see on social media is often romanticized. We’re all familiar with that sinking feeling after several minutes of scrolling — I don’t have it all together like they do. My family doesn’t look like that, my home isn’t as clean, or I don’t have as nice of things as they do. Whether it’s conscious or subconscious, there is something unique about the way time spent on social media leaves us feeling not good enough. 

Even though I loved watching videos of a young mother squatting all day while playing with her three children to prepare for her fourth home birth, or learning from another influencer what my diet did to my body during pregnancy, when it came to actually giving birth, it didn’t turn out to be so simple. The filtered view of these women’s lives made it seem like if I just checked the right boxes, just followed the same protocol that they did, there was no question I’d be able to have my baby naturally — as long as I was good enough.

Sadly, that was an illusion. I ate the dates and the beef liver and drank the red raspberry leaf tea. I did the clam-shell leg lifts and the breathing exercises. I mentally and spiritually prepared for pain and brought my two little black combs to squeeze in my hands during labor. And then, there was a tornado.

Enter the Tornado

Yes, a literal tornado was in our area right while I was trying to push my baby out. Some of the staff left to make phone calls and shelter in the basement of the house, while the midwife, my husband and I went into the bathroom with the door shut and the overhead lights off. All the while, I was still pushing. 

The storm must have passed by because eventually everyone came back and we left the bathroom, but now my labor was stalling. My contractions weren’t as close together, I was exhausted, and the spoonfuls of honey and the nipple stimulation weren’t getting us anywhere. At 1am, my husband told them we were thinking it was time to transfer to the hospital. The midwife reluctantly agreed and left to start making the necessary arrangements, but while she was gone the nurse intern came to talk to us. She told us that if we went to the hospital that they wouldn’t be able to give me an epidural since I was already at 10cm and pushing, and that they would instead give me a C-section. She told us that our boy was so close and that we should stay. So we did. 

Stair walking, countless positions, and many “think of a flower opening” inspirational talks later, it was 7am and we still had no baby. The midwife then told us that we indeed had to transfer to the hospital because they weren’t able to give me the postpartum care I would need having pushed for that many hours. She came with us in the backseat of our car and my exhausted husband drove, with me still pushing in the passenger seat, to the hospital. 

When we got there, the first thing they did — surprise, surprise — was give me an epidural. Then I was able to rest and eat some broth while my pitocin started to get my contractions back on track. Once all of that was flowing smoothly, I pushed for one final hour and had my baby boy without any further interventions, but about 10 doctors present at 12:15pm. We were so thrilled to finally meet him. 

Rose-Colored Glasses Removed

Sometime in the next few days, I sent our son’s picture to the birth center and told them how everything went. What happened next truly shocked me — they asked if they could post his picture on their social media. I told them no, not only because we planned to keep his image offline, but because in the end he hadn’t even been born there. It made me wonder how real some of the things I had been seeing online that promoted natural birth really were. 

Another surprise was that rather than praise for how long I worked without medication to have my baby, or acknowledgment of my 9 months of effort and dedication to having a natural birth, I instead received judgement and what felt like rejection from the club I had been trying, with the best intentions for my own baby, to join. In my follow-up phone call, the midwife suggested that the reason I couldn’t have him naturally was because I had a tight pelvic floor, which for all I know could have been true. Meanwhile, a doula friend suggested that I just simply hadn’t been strong enough to see the birth through, which again, for all I know, could have been true. However, I had stayed calm and focused through 48 hours of natural labor, so I’m not altogether convinced she was right. 

It was only my husband, rather than any of the natural birth representatives around, who suggested that my labor had slowed down because the tornado had put me into fight or flight mode. The trauma of my long and painful birth that likely stalled for entirely natural reasons was complicated by the feeling that I somehow hadn’t been strong or determined or good enough to have him how I should have been able to. When I saw the same influencers online again, the seemingly perfect image of empowered childbirth made me feel disappointed in myself.

My Second Birth: Feeling Stuck

When I found out that I was pregnant again, I tried to get into my old routine of prenatal yoga but quickly realized this pregnancy was affecting my body differently. From very early on, I had intense round ligament pain whenever I did movements like raising a leg while lying down, standing on one foot to put a sock on the other, or getting in and out of bed. 

Differences in pregnancy aside, I worked through my birth plan which ended up almost identical to my first, aside from location and a certain expectation that flexibility might be required. What I couldn’t prepare for was how the trauma of my first labor would play out in my second. Just like the first time, contractions started in the evening and I had early labor through one restless night. In the morning I began to doubt myself and my body when it seemed to me like things weren’t progressing how they should. My husband and I went for a walk and then I laid down to try to relax my mind. Around noon, active labor started and when the contractions hit the right timing, we went to the hospital. I was 6cm dilated, so they admitted me and asked about my birth plan. 

While I had hoped to feel prepared to continue to undergo natural labor again, I just wasn’t. The PTSD from my first birth was hitting me and my confidence hard, and on top of that I was realizing I would not be able to maneuver my body the way I had the first time to work through different positions and move the baby down and out because of my aching legs. I asked for the epidural. 

Once the meds kicked in, my midwife showed me some positions to choose from. My husband and I both inwardly rolled our eyes, thinking here we go again. I picked one with the peanut ball to humor her. She helped me get into position and instantly my water broke and I was at 10cm and ready to push. She and the nurse were telling me how close my boy was, that they could see his dark hair on his head, that I was so strong, and again I didn’t believe them. But I kept giving it my all. 

30 short minutes later, at 7pm, his head popped out but his shoulder got stuck — he was a big boy. Doctors rushed in and the room was a wild roar of activity for 80 long seconds and then he was fully out. I almost couldn’t believe it was that easy. I almost couldn’t believe I was able to give birth again. 

Closing Thoughts

Looking back on each birth, there are ways in which I can understand that everything happened how it did for a reason. My first boy was born with a rare velamentous membrane that hadn’t shown up in his ultrasounds, meaning the connection between him and his placenta was exposed and presented various risks and complications. Having him at the hospital, rather than a birth center, was probably the safest way for him to arrive. Our second son also had a rare though less worrisome membrane, but the fact that his shoulder got stuck made me grateful for the epidural for my own pain as they worked quickly and intensely to get him fully out, and also grateful I had been refused the water birth I had dreamt of due to that exact risk. 

Though I don't want to scare you, what you won’t often hear from influencers online is that both delivering your baby at home and at birth centers come with a more than doubled risk of perinatal death and neonatal seizures. Additionally, for new mothers attempting a home birth, 23-37% will transfer to the hospital (a similar 20-30% if you’re starting at a birth center), most often because the baby is unable to move through the birth canal. Despite this, if you choose to have your baby at a birth center or at home, you’ll be less likely to enter the cascade of interventions that occurs for some mothers at the hospital, and avoiding that possibility might be worth the other risks to you. Home births can be a beautiful, calm experience for many mothers. Likewise, hospital births can be a beautiful, calm experience for many mothers. 

Like so many things in this imperfect world, a lot of decisions about birth can be of the pick-your-poison variety, where no location or birth plan comes without its own risks and benefits. While you can’t control a lot of what happens during labor and delivery, what you can do is educate yourself so that as your story unfolds, you’ll know the pros and cons of all of your available choices. Childbirth is never predictable. Some babies take days of labor, some hours. Some big babies get stuck, some come out in two pushes. Sometimes labor stalls for unknown reasons, and sometimes there’s a tornado. 

A friend told me that her favorite part of her two pregnancies was the deliveries. She had an epidural each time and was able to truly enjoy the final stages of labor and meeting her babies. Maybe that’s more important than glorifying ourselves through our strength and pain tolerance during childbirth, or fetishizing any certain way to bring a baby into the world. Don’t get me wrong, if you can avoid medication and interventions, by all means do. Maybe next time I will, too. Just remember that living up to what you see online or to anyone else’s expectations is not the reason you’re having a baby, and that at any moment during your story, you’re the one who gets to decide what’s right for you and your family. Even though I have yet to have the unmedicated water birth I fell in love with online, what I do have is way more important — two beautiful and healthy boys.