Pushing the Narrative
On birth stories, C-section lingo & mothering between life & death
As a new mother, I used to love, maybe even crave, and definitely seek out birth stories. If I overheard someone in a baby music class talking about their birth experience, I shuffled closer. If I wasn’t a participant in the discussion, I was an eavesdropper. I sensed many newish moms, at least the ones I met, were the same. There was a collective desire and delight in sharing the birth stories of our babies, even, or maybe especially, the more dramatic, sometimes even disturbing parts.
I can’t speak to what other mothers wanted or got from the conversations, but I know I needed to feel I wasn’t alone in thinking this was the most unfathomable experience of my life and more importantly, that I had come out alive, albeit scathed in numerous ways, to tell the story. I desperately needed to look at other mothers, share our stories and end on a collective, “what the fuck happened there?” Maybe this is why I appreciated the more dramatic birth stories the most.
As I’ve written before, becoming a mother happens in many ways and giving birth is only one way. However, this particular newsletter focuses on biological birth, both vaginal and caesarean, mostly in the context of language and notions of narrative. Although I still appreciate a good (interpret that as you will) birth story, my children are a bit older, so I feel more removed from the urgency of birth storytelling. However, April is Caesarean Awareness Month so writing about c-sections and birth stories seems timely.
For context, my first birth was vaginal (more on that term below) and my second was a planned/scheduled C-section. (In the UK, anything other than an emergency C-section is called an “elective C-section”, a debatable term as in many pregnancies, including my own, there was no other choice.) The first birth, a vaginal one, was brutal, and I ended up in surgery after giving birth, separated from my new-born. The second time, a scheduled C-section, was in comparison, bliss (emphasis on in comparison). My surgery was a “gentle C-section” and I got to hold my daughter right after she was born for the rest of my time in the operating theatre. However, I know that is not the case for many mothers birthing via C-section. If friends ask what was better/easier, I always say my C-section, but again, my experience was my own and every birth is different, every birth has risks, devastatingly, for some women much more than others, and because I had both experiences, it is easier for me to say I would do one over the other.
It is not clear where the name “caesarean” comes from. One prevalent myth is that Julius Caesar was born via C-section, but historians have long discredited that idea. At the time, a C-section was impossible to survive and since his mother did not die, and went on to have more children, he was not born by C-section. As for etymology, “caedare” means to cut in Latin and “caesones” are infants born by post-mortem operations. Before the 20th century, C-sections were performed only on mothers who were dying or post-mortem.
A couple of years ago, I posted on Instagram about the term “abdominal birth” and its inclusion in the language of birthing and reproductive care. As opposed to a C-section, with its connotation that the birth was done to the birthing person (think: the patient was sectioned/ the patient had a C-section) as opposed to the empowering giving/gave birth, “abdominal birth” is an alternative that brings the power back to the birthing person. But power and empowerment are loaded concepts in birth language because in the history of C-sections versus what is predominantly called “natural birth”, it is all about power: who has it, who needs to take it back, and what does power really mean in a situation that for the most part, is impossible to control.
As C-section rates rose in the 1960s and beyond, because of the idea of “ideal births” (also, consider the notion of power of “too posh to push”), there was a backlash and a call for the “natural-birth movement”, to give the power back to the birthing person. But even this idea of “natural” implies that any other birth that is not vaginal (and likely unmedicated) is "unnatural”. Plus, the term “natural” is problematic in 99.9 % of contexts. And on and on it goes, the back-and-forth with the main problem as far as language goes in my opinion, or at least the easiest fix, is getting people more comfortable saying “vaginal birth”. The opposite of a C-section is not a “natural birth”, it is a vaginal birth. Even my young children know, and love to talk about how they each were birthed from a different part of my body (they say “came out” but emphasis on birthed to make my point).
In her brilliant book Mother Brain, Chelsea Conaboy, who also writes the newsletter
, devotes a few pages to the story of how even Ina May Gaskin, who is “the mother of authentic midwifery” and whose text Spiritual Midwifery was a catalyst for the 1970’s natural-birth movement, updated her classic, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth to include more about C-sections and the overall uncertainty of giving birth.On childbirth, Conaboy writes:
“An experience that the human body is capable of performing and that can be made easier by steadiness in the face of fear or by giving birthing people the right supports at the right time. And one that is incredibly intense, that almost uniformly pushes a person to the brink of what they can do physically and psychologically and sometimes to the very edge of life, that is shaped by forces that reach well beyond the particular biology of the birthing person on the day of delivery.”
Conaboy’s mention of “the very edge of life” in her description of birth, brings me back to my experience with birth stories. For my academic writing, I have been focusing on methodology recently, specifically the use of narrative inquiry and life history in linguistics research. (I use both in my research on the identity and emotionality of multilingual mothers.) Most papers using this methodology note the limitation that personal narratives, as recounted by study participants, are not always “the truth” or rather, they are perceived stories, told in a way that the participant experienced it. But of course, for the study participants, it is the truth. Narrative, especially when someone is looking back at events, is about memory. And memory is a tricky thing.
A couple of years ago, Leslie Jamison wrote A Personal History of the C-Section in The New York Times Magazine. It is an essay about, and analysis of, both the cultural history of the caesarean, and her own experience of having a C-section. She writes about mothers, including herself, feeling shame after a C-section, because they felt their bodies did not do what they were meant to do, they had somehow failed, or they did not have the perfect start to motherhood — a sad and unnecessary narrative I too have heard many times from women I know. But this is a narrative that is imposed on birthing people as another way to shame mothers before they’ve even had a chance to begin mothering.
At the end of the essay, Jamison asks, “Why do we want so much from our birth stories, anyway?” She continues: “If we’re lucky, birth is just the beginning. The labor isn’t done. It has only just begun.” I wholeheartedly agree but I also stand by my early motherhood fixation on birth stories and the power of sharing a narrative that acknowledges the fragility of life and the sheer madness of what it means to birth another human being.
While writing this newsletter, I kept thinking about this quote from Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts:
“People say women forget about the pain of labor, due to some kind of God-given amnesia that keeps the species reproducing. But that isn’t quite right—after all, what does it mean for pain to be “memorable”? You’re either in pain or you’re not. And it isn’t the pain that one forgets. It’s the touching-death part.”
The more time passes since the births of my children, the more the stories blur. Like I said, memory is a tricky thing. But I don’t think I will ever forget the moments when I thought I might die. And if I am ever sharing my birth stories again, I will try to always acknowledge the touching-death part. Maybe acknowledgement of our humanity and fragility is all we really want from our birth and mothering stories.
As always, thank you for reading.
This is so beautiful to read, especially as I am three months post partum with my second baby who was a caesarean birth, while my first was a very drawn out and fairly challenging vaginal birth. Both of them were empowering and both of them brought up healing for me. I don’t feel like I didn’t birth my second... if anything I feel almost more empowered by it because I feel like I had to really work hard to be in my body and stay grounded throughout... so much surrender and trust needed!! Thank you so much for sharing and thank you to Kelsey for sharing this article and bringing it to my attention. X
Brilliant as always. I’ve been trying to use language like “Cesarean birth” or “birth by Cesarean” to empathize that it is BIRTH and not just a surgery or procedure, but “abdominal birth” is even better.