A Chance to Share Your Birth Story

Long after the labor pains subsided, images of each of my deliveries would continue to flash in my mind. If someone chanced to ask how my labor went, the whole epic burbled forth  -- from the first contraction to the moment that my slithery, startled newborn was placed in my arms. It helps women tremendously to share their birth experience. "Whether they're satisfied or disappointed with it, they eventually grow to a point of acknowledgment about it: 'This is the woman I am, the baby I have, the birth I had,'" says Leona VandeVusse, Ph.D., director of the nurse-midwifery program at Marquette University College of Nursing, in Milwaukee. "One way they come to that place is by being able to tell their birth stories."

Unfortunately, in our culture we don't want to hear about the labor pains  -- we just want to see the baby. "We don't honor what the mother has just gone through," says VandeVusse. "There's no real forum for her to tell about it, no storytelling tradition, as in other cultures."

Talking about giving birth is especially useful if your experience wasn't what you'd hoped for or expected  -- for instance, you wound up needing an epidural despite weeks of natural-childbirth classes or you had to have an emergency c-section. Besides recounting your experience for friends and family, relive it with your ob or midwife at your postnatal checkup. As an expert (and a participant in your labor and delivery), your caregiver can help clarify why things happened the way they did and also remind you that for all your disappointment, the birth truly was a success: You got through it and gave life.