No blue hospital gown. No sterile drapes.
When I give birth, I want to be naked. No enema. No antiseptic wash. No shaving of pubic hair. If I wanted to shave something, I'd shave my head. Like Jean-Luc Picard. I've always wanted to be captain of a star ship.
When I give birth, I explore uncharted territory, I move and writhe into new worlds. I want to go where no man has gone before.In 1872, an English doctor named John Braxton Hicks discovered pre-labor contractions. This was sort of like Columbus discovering America. Some people already knew it was there.
No drugs. No epidural. I want to feel the baby moving, his hard head pushing through layers of me. My bones shifting, my uterus contracting.
I want to feel birth. I want to know fire.
No episiotomy. No amniotomy. I don't want anything that rhymes with lobotomy.
I prefer to stretch slowly, burning in a rim of panting breaths, around my baby's head.
No Pitocin drip. No synthetic hormone to stimulate labor. Let my baby choose his own birthday. My body does not recognize the ticking of the clock on the wall.
I don't want to control my body. I want to surrender. Let the pulse of that unborn voice throb through me.
I don't want a needle stuck in my hand. If my labor slows, I prefer to get my hormones the primitive way.
No electric fetal monitor. I don't need a machine to tell me how my baby is doing.
He kicks, he twists, he somersaults inside of me.
No bright lights. No noise. No softball cheers. Don't give me instructions. My body knows what to do.
Birth is not a team sport. I don't want a coach.
I want my husband's presence. His hands to grip. His arms a sling to lean the baby bulk against. His face a mirror in which I can watch my baby emerging.
No stupid jokes. No cheerful chatter. No television, please. I want to listen to the moans rising in my throat.
No delivery table. I am not a plate of spaghetti. Let me give birth on the bed. A table works fine for conception, but it's way too hard and far too awkward for birth.
I know what I want for my baby. No nursery. No pacifier. No bottles. No crib. No cheerful, white-coated, well-scrubbed, briskly walking, thermometer-wielding nurses, please.
Let the baby sleep against my skin, nurse from my breast, wrap his wrinkled blue limbs in the heat of my body.
Nothing intrauterine, nothing intravenous. I prefer to give birth in simple words. Breathe. Push. Touch. Pain. Wet. Stretch. Birth. Yes.
A woman knows.
The mystery is too overwhelming.
When the baby's head crowns, I want to touch the wrinkled scalp. I want to cradle the head in my palms while he is still inside of me.
My moans will be the guide I need to pull him out of myself.
Hot compresses.
Yes.
Dim lights, a bathtub of warm water.
Yes.
Hands massaging me.
Yes.
My husband lying next to me, solid to lean against.
Yes.
The smell and feel of a slippery newborn baby wriggling against my naked skin.
Yes.
This poem was shared with me by a friend.
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