Podcast: Why Aren't We Talking About Birth?

Birth is freaking hard.

I should know because I’ve recently-ish endured it for the second time. My son is now six months old BUT it is still fresh in my mind/I’m still recovering from the mild PTSD that comes with having a human exit your body. I gave birth for the first time to my daughter almost three years ago, and I think I was too distracted by the fact that I didn’t have a SINGLE EFFING clue what I was doing to even think about what it took for her to come into the world.

But this time was different. I didn’t take the time to prepare myself for birth. I put it in the back of my mind because I knew that at some stage a baby was going to have to fall out (and when I say fall, I mean rip me apart SOMEWHERE to arrive). So when I went into labour with my son, I had a bloody awful time. I didn’t enjoy it at all. I didn’t feel powerful, I didn’t feel supported and I was worried that he was going to rip my butthole to shreds because he was posterior (if you’ve experienced a posterior baby, you know what I’m talking about).

Everyone kept telling me that my second birth was going to be faster than my first. Especially because my cervix does this thing where it take two weeks to dilate 4cm and then all of a sudden I’m screaming to push. So as soon as I was in active labour I was at the hospital ready to have a baby! The midwives just let me do my thing, because of course I’d done it before and they assumed it would only be an hour until a demonic scream left my room claiming a baby was coming.

But, they were wrong. 

When my son EVENTUALLY (huge emphasis on the word, eventually) came into the world I was over the moon/in love/coming to terms with the fact that I’d definitely shit myself.  But, I was also traumatised. Nobody asked how I was. Nobody seemed to care that I’d just endured HELL. Because he was here! Lucky me! Giving birth is probably the most intense experience a woman could ever endure and yet, it is probably the most underrated and under discussed topic getting around.

Because women give birth everyday, right? What’s new? We are handed this beautiful little bundle of life and thrown straight into the bloody insane world, which is Motherhood. You don’t even have time to reflect on your birth story because you’re too busy being a walking, talking dairy and Google-ling nipple thrush. Our birth stories are important. BIRTH is freaking important.

So, I’m going to talk about it! I’m finally back from my holiday that wasn’t a holiday at all because I was instead being a full-time milk maid to my new baby and a snack bitch to my eldest one, with a new structure for Please, Ask Mikki! Hurrah! There are so many topics that I want to discuss and delve into! But an hour-long episode is not enough time to do that properly. So from now on each season will be an exploration into ONE particular topic. Yes! Amazing idea! I know!

This season is all about BIRTH. Amazing stories will be shared, experts will be interviewed and taboo topics will be explored! Recording this season has been an absolute bloody hoot and the guests who will be featuring are bloody UNREAL. I cried HEAPS (the laughing kind and the non-laughing kind). It’s annoyingly made me want to have another baby JUST so I can make birth my bitch/have a beautiful and empowering experience.

So I hope you enjoy this season as much as I enjoyed making it! The first episode I will be sharing my own birth story, the birth of Marley, my son. A story that I am yet to share with the world! (Full disclosure, after hearing so many AMAZING birth stories it occurred to me that my own story is actually kind of anticlimactic and boring. But I threw as much mayo on it as I could for entertainment purposes).

All events explained are 98% true.

Enjoy! And don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Please, Ask Mikki podcast because my grandfather has no effing clue what a podcast is so I print him out copies of my reviews to prove to him that people listen to my shit.

Anyway, I’ll bugger off so you can listen to the episode.

-Mikki

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