At a client’s suggestion, I listened to The Longest Shortest Time’s recent episode – Ina May’s Guide, Completely Revisited. In this episode, Hillary Frank dives back into an episode she did five years ago with Ina May Gaskin. Hillary talks openly and honestly with Gaskin about her own struggles with the natural birth movement, how she so very much wanted to have a natural birth, how that did not work out the way she planned, how she felt she failed at childbirth, and how Ina May’s books contributed to that feeling of failure. As I listened, I found myself nodding my head in agreement.

My older sister is a childbirth educator and doula. She is very – and I mean VERY – good at what she does. Her expertise is vast, thorough, and on point. If you live in the New York/New Jersey area, and you are pregnant – you are going to want to talk to her. When I was pregnant, we spoke often. My plan was to have a natural birth. I was quite confident in my body’s ability to handle birth. I was strong, in shape, and feeling good. As an athlete, I knew what it meant to push through even when you are tired, hurting, and want to stop. I knew how to handle feeling uncomfortable. In fact, if there was one thing I feared – it was the epidural.  Getting a needle in my back, not being able to feel the lower half of my body – that scared me more than labor pains. So, knowing this was the plan, my sister recommended I read Gaskin’s perennial work Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. I did and I was hooked. Like Hillary and countless other women – I was empowered, inspired, and ready to go.

I am hesitant to disclose the details of Amichai’s birth. When I was pregnant, there were so many well-intentioned women that went over every harrowing moment of their child’s birth. And while I appreciated their openness and willingness to share, these were stories I didn’t need to hear. Tips and advice – I was happy to take, but these war stories…just not helpful. I wasn’t willing to be frightened or worried about my own labor based on someone else’s tale. One experience in birth certainly does not dictate another. So now, I hesitate because I don’t want to scare or worry a first-time mom or any mom really. You do not need to know the excruciating details of a very long birth. But what you do need to know is that nothing went according to my plan.

The plan for a natural birth with no medical intervention went out the window when my labor stopped progressing at a certain point. I was given Pitocin. That worked but the labor still wore on. My energy was completely depleted. I was exhausted and frustrated. My doula – a woman who very much believes in natural birth and very much knew that I did not want an epidural -turned to me at one point and said – you need to take the epidural if you want to make it through the labor. I begrudgingly took it and for the first time in my life, I felt disappointed and embarrassed that I couldn’t reach the finish line on my own.

In the midst of my labor and in the months afterward that I spent in reflection or really beating myself up- it was all just failure. The body I believed to be strong and resilient, the body I had depended on so many times to support me in any athletic endeavor, the body I had coaxed and begged at times to just play on despite the pain or exhaustion – it failed me. And I failed it. Where was my mental fortitude to rise above and just keep going? Where was my focus? Where was my will? These feelings were intensified the more I thought about what followed in the days after Amichai’s birth. It was bad enough that in my first act of motherhood – labor – I had failed miserably. But now I had failed in my second act as well. Amichai had a stroke and I wasn’t there for him. A tremendous sense of guilt washed over me. I thought of him in that moment more than once – thinking about how scared he must have been, how alone he must have felt. And all that would go through my head was the punishing thought that the very first time he needed me most – I was not there. I failed again. Where did I go wrong?

Eventually, with enough time and thought and acknowledgement of reality, the obvious answer came to me: I didn’t go wrong. At all. Labor and birth are hard and complex. My body didn’t fail me, there were simply factors beyond my control. And in fact, in the face of these factors I realized I might have been strong and resilient after all. I took the medicine – I wasn’t stubborn or reckless. I did what I had to do. It’s not what I wanted, it’s not what I planned, but I pivoted and moved on in order to help myself and help Amichai. When I thought about my labor in this light, I didn’t see failure anymore. I saw a successful first step as a parent. As far as the guilt, that took more time as irrational as it was. I think today – and maybe forever – the guilt will linger ever so slightly. My eyes still fill up with tears when I think of him in that moment…I should have been there. I probably – ok most definitely, overcompensate for it in some way. That could explain my helicopter parenting tendencies, to try my best to protect him even when I can’t…but I also know that my actions and behavior toward Amichai are always motivated by love and never guilt. It’s a work in progress…

I share these thoughts specifically because my story isn’t unique. That’s why I appreciated Hillary Frank’s podcast. She echoed the sentiments of hundreds and thousands of women, underscoring the need to adjust our individual outlook and perspective – to be kinder to ourselves – but also underscoring the need for the natural birthing community to adjust their rhetoric. Ina May listened. Based off her interview with Frank, she was motivated to revise her work and modify her message so that its more inclusive of all birthing experiences. Her goal now is to empower women no matter what the plan. Sometimes it happens the way you want and sometimes it doesn’t – but there is no failure in birth because really the plan is always the same – to have the baby. Take the gift.

Perfect is how perfect comes.