11. Your Experience in Birth Matters

I thought about writing this post in two words: “see title.” But I’m on fire about it, so here we go. 

To the person who thinks they can’t complain about their birth because others had it worse, your experience matters.

To the person who thinks they should just be “grateful” to have made it out alive, your experience matters.

To the person who was treated with disrespect and condescension by a provider, your experience matters.

To the person who had to fight for basic care, your experience matters.

To the person who felt confused and unsupported, your experience matters. 

To the person who wasn’t given all their options, your experience matters.

To the person who had a scary health event during birth, your experience matters.

To the person whose birth unfolded in a way they never expected, your experience matters.

Your experience in birth is not some fluffy afterthought. Your experience in birth is birth. 

Here’s why: our experience is us. We are human beings. Not vessels. 

We are not containers that hold babies until they’re delivered from us. 

We are full, complex people with rich histories and experiences. We have our own priorities, hopes, fears, and expectations of birth. We have our own unique triggers. We have our own unique coping strategies. We deserve for our humanity to be recognized during birth. 

We deserve excellent, compassionate, respectful, individualized care. At the very least, that should be the one thing in birth we can count on. Many things have become standardized in birth care, but it’s providers caring about your experience in birth as opposed to trying to separate it from birth that’s truly important. Birth happens in our bodies. We are birth. We are our experiences. Our babies have lived inside of us, and our experiences will live inside of us too. As Penny Simkin says in her preface to The Birth Partner, “how a person is cared for and supported during birth is a major influence, not only in how they give birth but also in how they feel about the birth for years to come.”

I don’t think any nurse or care provider or hospital employee ever intentionally chooses to try to diminish a birther’s experience. Most of the time I think it results from the collision of providers’ normal workdays with one of the biggest moments of your life. You’re there to have your baby, a once in a lifetime thing, but for everyone else, it’s their 9-5. Or 7-7. For better, for worse, and for everything in between, this is their work life. There’s the colleague to grumble about, a sick kid at home, grocery shopping to do. Most of us can have these normal worries and obstacles in our lives without having to consider how they might affect someone during such a pivotal life moment. We can lose our temper or be snippy or rush someone or get distracted or take our time or make a certain facial expression, and it won’t be indelibly linked to someone’s experience of giving birth.

Another thing that results in the dismissing of a birther’s experience is the (in my opinion, false) idea that safety can be achieved by dividing the mind from the body. That in order to “protect” baby’s safety, we can ignore a birther’s needs, particularly their emotional ones. This is not only counterproductive but dangerous. Drs. Rachel Reed and Sarah Buckley speak and write brilliantly on the delicate hormonal symphony that is labor. For that symphony to happen, we have to feel safe and supported. 

Birthers cannot be forgotten in the equation of birth. Our bodies and minds and hearts are not meant to be casualties of a “healthy delivery.”

We are birth. Birth — no matter what it looks like — happens within us. So our experience in and of it is birth itself. It cannot be walled off, treated as something else. Our experience in birth should not come second to a healthy baby. We are allowed to want a healthy baby and to be well ourselves, to be cared for with dignity and respect. 

Will there be births where people experience trauma? Yes. But the type of care we receive and the way we’re treated should be a balm for that trauma, not a contributing factor.

With up to 45% of birthers experiencing birth trauma, we need to do better. We need to value the experiences of birthers as much as the babies they give birth to.