We just got back from vacation, we don't have any food in the house, all three of us have the death flu, I'm wearing sweatpants, and I wish I was napping. Let's just leave it at that and move on to the book discussion, yes?
First things first...I copied this image from a website entitled "Doula Right Thing." That is awesome in and of itself (my husband and I had a conversation about whether or not you would write that "in and of itself" or "inandofitself," he thought it might be all one word. Anyone know so I don't have to google? Also, anyone know why the heck two people would actually care enough to talk about it?)
But I digress. The real awesomeness I came here to talk about what this book. I came across "Baby Catcher" when I was obsessively researching labor. It came up in a library topic search I did one day and I like memoirs and I obviously like labor so I picked it up and was not disappointed. There are so many books about natural childbirth but most of them are how-to guides that include a lot of techniques and awkward looking pictures of men with long hair and cut-off jean shorts laying next to naked women squatting but not a lot of heart. This book is very different. It is basically the birth stories of hundreds of women through the eyes of a Certified Nurse Midwife and catalogs all the many different types of births she was a part of throughout her career. I think there is a story for almost every different kind of birth you can imagine, some beautiful and others heartbreaking. I loved reading this while I was pregnant because it made me feel so empowered. It made me realize that millions of women have birthed their babies naturally. And not all of them would consider themselves abnormally strong or brave or special in their normal life. But something about the miracle of birth gave them the ability to do it and reading their stories made me think that if they could, then certainly I could to.
This recommendation is somewhat limited because I don't think anyone who isn't pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant would want to read it. But for those of you who fall into these two categories it's a must read.
*Disclaimer- there are a couple of stories in which the end result is quite tragic and sad. If you are someone who is trying to avoid thinking about the worst case scenario when it comes to labor maybe you should avoid it. But for me, I think knowing everything that could go wrong made me feel more prepared. Anyway, I thought a proper warning was only fair.
No comments:
Post a Comment