birth envy

The newest edition of Mothering Magazine arrived in the post today. I received a subscription from a good friend for a shower gift. This month is the "Special Pregnancy Edition," dedicated to such fascinating topics as "how to have a sustainable baby shower" & "does labor really hurt that bad?" (answer: no). But the worst of it was that it came stuffed chock full of birth stories.

Now, I used to be a sucker for a good birth story before I got one of my own. And the story that I have to tell is one of such great disappointment it has really soured me on all stories, especially the glorious, rapturous, perfect-natural-water-birth ones, which is just the sort that gives Mothering Magazine editors a wet dream. I'll admit that I enjoy hearing other people's super shitty birth stories, especially, say, if you wound up laying spread out -arms splayed like Jesus on the fucking cross (why they make you lay like that I do not know!?)- under cold, harsh lights while someone butchered your belly like it was a greasy side of beef. Even if you had a somewhat crazy birth but wound up managing to do it vaginally, I still hate hearing your story. Especially if you're all like "I labored for 24 hours! -boo-hoo! -it was soooo hard." Try laboring for 4 days, bitch, and then get back to me.

Okay, okay. I know. This is really harsh and not at all like me. I am nicer than this. I have never been jealous & petty -at least not since I hit 30. I am betting that someday this strikes me as funny. Someday I will be more gracious again, but meanwhile I just have no mercy. I guess you could say I am still a mite angry with how things turned out. Obviously, I have moved on materially -I am not sobbing daily or anything. But my brain still has to blip over that whole nightmare or else I get sucked into meditating on it all over again, considering my options as though I still have them, wondering where I went wrong, etc., etc.

(I apologize in advance if you are my friend and if this post offends you or makes you feel like I don't care about your birth experience -I do. I am just feeling feisty and pissed off at the moment. Maybe I should burn my Mothering Magazine. That might make me feel better...)