Browsing Tag

Shannon Frost Greenstein

Guest Posts, Child Birth

A Choice C-Section: Delivery after Sexual Assault

October 1, 2017
c-section

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…

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood

An Open Letter to My Formula-Fed Baby

October 30, 2016
formula

By Shannon Frost Greenstein

Dear Offspring,

I must apologize. I must do more than apologize. I must grovel on my knees for your forgiveness, kowtow to your sleeping form, throw myself upon my samurai sword in disgrace. I have failed you. I have failed as a mother, but more than that, I have failed as your provider and protector. Your existence is now irrevocably screwed up, all because I’m feeding you formula.

Offspring, please understand. I tried. I tried SO bloody hard. I wanted to breastfeed you more than anything in the world, and I will never get back the block of my life that I devoted trying to feed you from my body. Don’t get me wrong…I would happily sacrifice it a million times over if there was even the remotest chance I could rear you the way nature intended. But it was just a physical impossibility, and now, you’re playing through life with an unimaginable handicap, all because I’m feeding you formula.

Just so you know how sorry I really am, let me detail how your life is flat-out ruined, all because I’m feeding you formula. Continue Reading…