slow birth

  Having just read Gloria Lemay's blog on slow birth, i am feeling awakened to how our cultural values on how fast = better have seeped into birth, even "natural birth". With my first 2 i had  average birth lengths, about 8 hours with each, always jealous of the women who could pop out those babes and then leave in their skinny jeans. (2.5 years after my third, i am still looking at those damn skinny jeans.)
  We've all either told or heard the stories, "the baby just shot out", "3 hours of labour and 2 grunts, and she was out...and that was my first!", or " i went from 4 cm to birth in 40 minutes"..OK the last one was me. I fell into the trap of competitive birthing!! How could've i been so duped?! The ironic thing is, is that the last super fast birth i had, felt like i had a semi coming out my behind...and made me feel like i was lucky to be alive afterwards. And THAT was my brag story, simply because it was fast. How lame of me. But my grace is that many of us do it, a reason many moms like avoiding new mom groups like the plague, since we will all be forced to tell our story and either amp it up with tales of horrible pain and incredibly long painful hours, or make the rest of the women feel like itty bitty wimps(or at least not very efficient) by saying how fast and easy peasy it was. Either way to say it, we still like making a statement of how powerful we are. We all have many ways in which we are powerful, and a good slow birth is a thing to be proud of as well.

Gloria's blog and article here:

A lovely birth here:(also taken from Gloria's blog)