CW: This essay discusses sexual assault. If you or someone you know has been assaulted, find help and the resources you need by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673, or visit www.RAINN.org.
By Shannon Frost Greenstein
I wanted a C-section.
You might be looking at me incredulously right now. I mean, major surgery while you’re conscious? Months of recovery? Not being able to clutch your child to you immediately? No matter how much you adore your partner, it still stings to see them get to hold the baby first, am I right, C-section Mamas??
But from the moment I peed on the stick and saw a faint pink line, a pervasive thought was, “Oh, Jesus, I don’t want to push my offspring out through my vagina.”
I know that’s the evolutionary procedure. I know so many women have survived it, and endured it, and that it is very nearly a rite of passage and an empowering experience for the female sex. But it just seems like a bad design to me. I’m guessing, and you can back me up here, Natural-birth Mamas, that it hurts a hell of a lot.
But there’s more to it than that. Continue Reading…