\u201cChildbirth is like shitting a pumpkin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wrote that sentence in a dissertation fourteen years ago. At the time, I had never experienced childbirth. I had never been pregnant. I had not even come close to vaginal birth. I still don’t know what it’s like, at least the pushing part, as my son was born via an emergency c-section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The line was borrowed from a feminist legal theorist, and I included it because it made me laugh and because I felt that it explained what those who experience childbirth go through in a way that isn’t usually highlighted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back then, when writing about the experiences of women in pregnancy and childbirth, it was simply theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now it is lived experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have since experienced childbirth, and I can confidently say that it was not the straightforward process I’d imagined and hoped for after having a low risk pregnancy until week 36. It was intense, unpredictable, and overwhelming. In fact, whilst low risk, the rest of pregnancy wasn’t straightforward either as I suffered with hyperemesis at the beginning and then nausea and food aversions continued until the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This blog is not here to romanticise pregnancy or childbirth. It is also not here to scare anyone. Instead, it is an honest account of what pregnancy and childbirth felt like for me, viewed through a neurodivergent lens. The sensory overload. The loss of control. The medical systems that assume a very particular kind of patient. I’m also here to raise awareness of the things that aren’t talked about: the fact that some of us can’t just breathe through the pain, what a c-section does to your bowels and post-natal pet aversion as well as so much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fourteen years ago, I quoted a line because it sounded shocking and funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, I get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I have a lot more to say about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TW: Mention of emergency c-section<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-divergently-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/95"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.divergentlybeing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}