Reclaim woman-led birth

It's time to let birth happen again in America

We are expecting a third child in late February, and to my great surprise, it’s a girl.

I have not imagined what it might be like to have a daughter. After two boys, I have been so sure that a third child would also be male. We know so many three-boy families. I have envisioned life as an all-boy mom and had felt at peace with that identity. Since Moses, truly, I haven’t permitted myself to daydream about having a little girl. I continue to feel surprised. The boys, by default, refer to the baby as a “he,” and in my mind, I still do too a lot of the time.

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As I’ve been meditating on this third pregnancy, I’m thinking again about how grateful I am for the experiences of bringing my first two children into the world.

I’ve experienced birth as a radicalizing odyssey, as I suspect many mothers have. Aside from being born ourselves and dying, it’s the most intense thing we’ll do with our bodies in our lifetimes. It’s the closest we’ll come to experiencing that liminal space between life and death, to witnessing that golden thread that always thinly separates the two.

I was able to access this sacredness of birth due in large part to our doula. One of the most meaningful decisions I made when pregnant with Moses was hiring Meredith as our doula.

I picked Meredith arbitrarily out of a list of area doulas because she had the best-written statement (and the prettiest hair), but I genuinely believe she was sent from God. She’s a natural-movement pioneer and homeschooling mom who is also one of the most action-oriented feminists I’ve ever met. She fundamentally transformed the way I think about my body and its innate power.

Aside from revolutionizing the way we thought about our daily movement and our shoes (about which you’ve surely heard me proselytize by now), Meredith ushered in a new framework for thinking about birth.

As she got to know us and my strong preferences for a birth without medical intervention, she gently suggested I consider alternatives to the traditional OB practice in which I’d spent two-thirds of my first pregnancy.

The night before Felix was born. (Photo on film by my sister Grace.)

I picked this OB practice because people said it was great. Everyone in town went there and delivered at the hospital that had “fancy birthing tubs” (but in which, I learned, you could not give birth, so, bit of a misnomer). From the beginning, however, I had terrible experiences with nearly every doctor in this practice.

Every five-minute visit with an OB was disappointing. They probed my body and didn’t make much eye contact. They were clearly too busy for me. They didn’t have time for me or my questions, and I asked too many questions. Instead, I was given a lot of patronizing directives. I was told that I had to give birth in the bed, that I couldn’t move too much or eat and drink in labor, that I probably wouldn’t be able to endure the pain without an epidural, that having a “birth plan” or even preferences was silly, that I was two pounds overweight and needed to watch it, that there was a 1% chance our baby had a brain defect (he didn’t), that a birth without drugs was unlikely.

In sum, the message I got from the obstetricians was loud and clear: You can’t do this without our help.

This was never what I heard from Meredith. Instead, she taught me about how my body was made to bring my baby into the world. It could do all of these incredible things all on its own, all in the right time and right way. The way I moved could actively affect my pregnancy and my labor. She shared videos with us of births happening outside a hospital, of women bringing their babies into the world with no intervention, in the dark peace of their homes or their bathtubs. I was intrigued and riveted.

After another frustrating visit with the OBs, we met with Meredith and she gently suggested that a home birth with a midwife was another option. She said that this was a model of care and an environment that would be far more likely to support the kind of birth I wanted.

(Below, a one-minute statement from Meredith herself: a perfect summary of her philosophy as a birth advocate.)

I remember thinking: Are we allowed to do that? Is anyone? I didn’t know anyone who’d had a home birth. I thought home birth was only for Ina May Gaskin and her fellow hippies, way out in a commune in the woods.

I was almost done with my second trimester at this point. I didn’t know if I had enough time to switch, if anyone would take me. But after all I’d read and seen and learned, the idea appealed to me deeply and instantly. Meredith, bless her, set to work researching home-birth midwives in our area and led us to Kelly of Charlottesville Midwifery.

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The next day, I called my mom and told her that I was thinking about giving birth at home. I wanted her wisdom and, truthfully, her approval. I was nervous. Even hinting at the idea of a home birth among people our parents’ age invited immediate censure and fear.

I shouldn’t have been nervous. Like Meredith, my mother is also a radical homeschooling mom who doesn’t like being told what to do by The Establishment.

Mom gave birth four times with no medical intervention in hospitals in the 1980s and 1990s, which is a Herculean feat if I’ve ever heard one. During every birth, she had to argue with her doctors and nurses not to intervene. She had to fend them off while in the throes of labor. While she was in the middle of pushing, she had to yell at them not to give her an episiotomy, as they stood over her, scalpel in hand. (I can’t even imagine.) When my sister Kelsey was born, the attending OB stayed after her shift had ended because she’d never seen a woman give birth without medical intervention before. She was profoundly curious. She didn’t know it could be done. (Mom also said this was the only female OB she had, and it was by far the best birth experience, compared with the three male OBs who attended her three other births.)

Mom listened to me, and the first thing she said was: “I would have had home births with all four of you if it had been an option for me. You should do it.”

Her blessing meant so much to me. I felt empowered and eager.

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My birth stories are not what I intend to share (although they were powerful and moving and hard and what I wanted, bringing my babies into the world supported by my midwife, doula, and husband, in the peace of our home).

Laughing with Meredith a few minutes after Felix’s arrival.

Instead, in this phase of a third pregnancy, I feel awash with gratitude. I am so thankful that, over four years ago, Meredith told me there was another way.

Birth doesn’t have to happen in a crisis-management state in a hospital—even though that’s the environment in which 98% of births in the United States occur. C-sections are the most common surgery in America every year. One in five women have their labors induced. Every birth is regarded as a potential medical emergency.

I was planning on being part of that overwhelming majority. I was girding my loins to fight and argue for the birth I wanted with every nurse and doctor who came my way. I knew enough to be wary of their manipulation and presumed authority over my labor at a time when I knew that my body and my baby should be in charge.

I’m not writing to say that I think home birth is for everyone or that you should feel at fault for a birth that didn’t go as you’d hoped. (On the contrary, you’re the very last person who deserves censure.)

Rather, I wish every woman in America could know that hospitals and OBs aren’t the only way. It is possible to be centered and supported as a pregnant woman, rather than manipulated, patronized, and controlled, which has become the standard in our country.

If you find yourself pregnant, hire a great doula and then read Allison Yarrow’s new book, Birth Control, which offers a comprehensive survey of how birth is going in this country right now. (Spoiler alert: It’s not going great. The trend is not good for women or their babies. You’re more likely to die in childbirth than your mother was, among other things. Yarrow’s recent interview, “Childbirth Should Not Be a Battlefield,” also provides a moving summary of her work and this fraught landscape, if you want a teaser.)

Childbirth Should Not Be a Battlefield

Reclaiming woman-led birth feels vitally important to me. I want it for my sisters and cousins and friends.

I share the same prayer that Yarrow uses to conclude her book:

“The most power I’ve ever felt was during birth. Birthing at home, I didn’t have to play defense. I didn’t have to fight for the agency and permission to do it the way I wanted. That was everything. I now understand how birth can become an addiction, how some people end up with more kids than toes.

“When I think about this now, when I hear that a friend or loved one is pregnant, I am overcome with want. First, I pray that the coercion, manipulation, and needless suffering won’t touch them. Then, I wish for them support and the gift of being left alone to do the work of labor, to experience its magic and power. I want this for everyone.”

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