By then I was in my third trimester, and myapproaching laborwas on my mind.
And my phone knew it.
In it, a “birth trainer” demonstrates the appropriate way to relax while pregnant.
I wanted to throw my phone across the room.
I was exhausted, damn it.
Why couldn’t I just curl up on the couch and turn off my brain for a moment?
Why did every single thing I did have to be tailored to my pregnancy?
But the lure of optimization was impossible to resist.
So I sat up, placed my feet on the floor, opened my hips, and exhaled.
And I wasn’t the only Good Birth striver out there: The video had half a million views.
I’m not talking about the common-sense basics, from birth education classes to making a birth plan.
Much of the talk around optimizing birth is well-meaning.
But it also feeds an absurd narrative that childbirth can bemastered.
For many expectant parents, the appeal of embracing one birthing style over another is about asserting control.
Or, more precisely, theillusionof control during one of life’s most emotionally charged, high-stakes experiences.
“I envisioned this wonderful, natural, empowering experience,” she says.
Then the reality of labor hit her.
“I felt shame,” she says.
The guilt trailed her home from the hospital.
It was a completely bogus claim, but she worried that her daughter’s fussiness might be her fault.
“It was freeing to think maybe I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
But that’s not how it worked out.
“And I tore anyway.”
Even those who feel good about their choices wind up fretting over whether they got it wrong.
“But the comparison game, both online and just in general, is so intense.”
Anyone not tethered to social media would conclude that my first birth went fine.
My water broke right on time, and my partner andmy doulamet me at the hospital.
Two years later, social media has me second-guessing the whole experience.
My mind jumped to the present.
You forgot me!"
Had my decision to get an epidural short-circuited our bond, dooming her to an anxious attachment style?
There’s zero evidence it had.
But there I was, crying over the dishes, worried that I had failed as a mother.
Was the epidural the reason I labored for so long?
My obstetrician did his best to calm my Instagram-induced fears with actual medical facts.
That’s because the Good Birthers aren’t concerned with the specific complexities that attend every individual birth.
They’re marketing one of the most lucrative products of all: the fear of being a bad mother.
Today, I’m 36 weeks pregnant.
My birth plan is as set as it can ever be.
I’m basically aiming to do exactly what I did last time.
If it hurts too much, or I get too tired, I’m going to get the epidural.
But this time, I’ve done one thing differently to ensure a Good Birth.
Amelia Harnish is a health reporter based in New York’s Hudson Valley.
