Ina May Gaskin in her Guide to Childbirth says this: "Stories teach us in ways we can remember. They teach us that each woman responds to birth in her unique way and how very wide-ranging that way can be...Birth stories told by women who were active participants in giving birth often express a good deal of practical wisdom, inspiration, and information for other women. Positive stories shared by women who have had wonderful childbirth experiences are an irreplaceable way to transmit knowledge of a woman's true capacities in pregnancy and birth.”
So telling birth stories can help others by illustrating how different birth can be each time and for each mother. That is so important when one of our motherhood feels that her birth was somehow lacking or if she had a traumatic birth. She can see that she is not alone in her experience. Positive stories are of equal value in dispelling fears and illustrating the beauty in what is often deemed something to just be "gotten over with". No, birth is not something to just be "gotten over with" any more so than other important life transitions (weddings? graduations? eh, just give me something to knock me out and lets never talk about it again. Ha!) It is something that connects us as women and as humans, something to be pondered, felt, learned from and ultimately told.
“I heard a baby cry. And this blood-splattered thing was put in my arms. My child. And, at that moment, it was like a gigantic plug appeared and - POW! - I was plugged into humanity in a way I'd never been before. Never could be. I was part of all mothers and all births from the beginning of time. I was a woman in a mud hut in Africa, in an igloo in the Arctic, a wigwam in America, a cave, a skyscraper, a spaceship. I was part of a flow and that flow was blood -” ― Philip Ridley
There are so many reasons for us as humans and as women to share our birth stories. And in the spirit of storytelling...I'll be sharing my middle son's birth story with you next :) Stay tuned!
