Today I’m vey proud to have essay up at The Rumpus, which consistently publishes the best non-fiction of any magazine or website I read. The piece is called “Birth Story” and it’s about birth stories in general, and one in particular. In many ways, it’s a follow-up to an essay of mine they published last year, “On Pregnancy and Privacy and Fear.” It’s fun for me to see these pieces listed together when you click on my name on the site. It reminds me how much of my life has changed in the last year and how much has stayed largely the same.
Here’s the opening of “Birth Story.” You can read the rest here.
The birth story must always start the same way: with a woman in pain. There’s no avoiding the pain. The pain is how you know it’s beginning. It’s the overture, the epigraph, the amuse-bouche. You sit up straight. You stand up. You walk around. You move as if the pain is something you can twist away from, like pulling your hand from a hot stove. But this pain is coming from inside. This pain is trying to twist away from you. But first it has to come through you. First it has to open you up.
Aubrey Hirsch 