I honestly don’t know what I clicked or what I searched, or which wrong turn I took on the internet but somehow, my entire feed is now flooded with birth videos. On every social app, almost every scroll, and I am not okay.
I mean, I understand it. I do. Birth is a beautiful thing. It’s natural, it’s powerful. It’s basically life entering the world in its rawest form. But the process? Oh my goodness. It has traumatized me.
I don’t anyone really prepares you for it, certainly not like this or in full detail. Not with the sounds, the strain, and the intensity written all over the women’s face I have seen, as she pushes life into existence.
I have watched, rather unintentionally, as women scream, breathe through pain, hold onto something for dear life, their bodies doing something so powerful and yet so overwhelming.
Then there’s me, who just sits there, staring at my screen and asking myself is this really what we all signed up for? ‘cause it makes my heart race. It makes me uncomfortable and scared.
And I know, I know it’s not all pain. There’s joy at the end of it, there’s relief and also that beautiful moment when the baby arrives and everything shifts. I’ve seen that part too. But right now? My mind has refused to move on from the process which brings me to my new level of respect, noreverence, for women especially mothers. Because that? That is not a small thing and it certainly is not just something women do. It is strength in its most physical, emotional, and terrifying form.
And it also made me think about women who choose to be surrogates. Because wow. To willingly go through that, not just for yourself, but for someone else is a kind of selflessness that deserves its own kind of applause.
They are out here making the world softer for women like me, women who, at least right now, are absolutely not ready for that journey.
Maybe one day, I’ll feel differently. Maybe when I’m ready, when it’s my time, when I’ve built the courage to face it. But for now, with the images still fresh in my mind? I want no parts.
I’ll just sit here, quietly appreciating every mother, every woman who has gone through that process and came out on the other side for truly that is not an easy thing to do. Not even close.
And if nothing else, this accidental deep dive into that side(air quote) of the internet has taught me that women are unbelievably strong. And I will never, ever take that lightly again.