Reading & Weeping

I didn’t think “read it and weep” was a real thing that people did, but this afternoon I proved myself wrong!

The thought of staying awake 12 more hours and then actively pushing was unfathomable. I looked at Dustin. “What do you think?” I asked him, begged him to tell me. He was at a loss, too.

“Whatever you want to do, it’s your body.”

I hated this. Stop reminding me. It was my goddamn body, I had to endure the physical, at the very least someone else should have to do the mental arithmetic.

I wanted the c-section so badly. I wanted it like you want a glass of water at a stranger’s house, but you still feel like you should demur. I wanted it the way I wanted someone to stick a finger in my butt during sex, but would never ask for. I was thinking like a woman. I was in the most essentially oppressed, essentially female situation I’ve ever been in and I was mentally oppressing myself on top of it.

Meaghan O’Connell has been sending out her birth story, chapter by chapter, as an e-mail newsletter, but it is now available in it’s glorious, terrifying, hilarious, beautiful entirety. Her complete story is 14,248 words, will take you an estimated 57 minutes to read, and is so, so worth your time, energy, and tears. Read it. Weep.