Birth Art

I signed up for the class because I thought it would help. I was pretty miserable. And alone. I googled “single moms,” “single pregnancy” and “single xyz baby very sad please help etc” on that day in April. I managed to find a “birthing class” for single moms, and promptly signed up for it. It was scheduled for July. And I was pumped. I was going to find new friends! New, pregnant, SINGLE friends! To replace the friends that had forgotten me! It was going to be amazing.

I should have known I was going to be in trouble when I read that this class was a “Birthing From Within” class. I had tried to read the book and knew it didn’t really “vibe” with me. I knew I wanted to try and have a natural birth, but wasn’t going to bet the farm on it.  (it’s a good thing you didn’t! Love, your epidural)

Flash forward July: We met at our teacher’s house in North Portland. It was very, very hot. I knew almost immediately that I wasn’t going to fit in. I was the ONLY girl there with a male doctor. Oh, and yeah, I was the only girl there WITH A DOCTOR. It was a lot of, “oh, you are letting a MALE into your birth? wow…” and “I am birthing in the water because the hospital is so evil” etc, etc, etc. Basically, a very open and welcoming place! They were all super judgey and I felt like I was in high school. Pregnant high school, with mean hippies. Oh, yeah, guess what?  I was the only girl there with health insurance. Or a full-time job!  Take that, bitches.

Our first class, the teacher told us to get on the floor (THE FLOOR!) with some paper and chalk and pastels to draw our “birth art.” I felt like I was in a bad dream, or at least fifth grade art class. I kneeled my eight months pregnant 200 pound ass onto the floor and “closed my eyes” and “thought about the thought that most represented how I wanted my birth to be.” BARF. When it was time to open our eyes and “draw the image we saw,” I did my best. As the other girls went around the room and shared theirs, I really knew I was in the wrong place. It was a lot of “this flower represents my vagina” and “this bird is flying over me in the field of my birth” and la la la, hippie hippie la la. When they got to me, I showed them my drawing:

 ”This is me. I am happy, because I have my baby, and I am not pregnant anymore. Everyone else is happy too. And the sun is shining.”

And that is exactly how it was!

The end!

Well, not really the end. I didn’t make any friends through that class, and later went on to have a VERY hospitalized birth, complete with induction, my water being broken, epidural and all…and I am totally okay with that. What I am not okay with is how much “natural birthing” was shoved down my throat when I was pregnant, and how rude the girls in my “birthing from within” class were to me. I hope they all had really painful, drug-free births. And mostly, I wish there was a genre for nice, hospital-birthing, single moms who want to make friends. Because I would love to meet them.