The "right" way to give birth

(I guess I'm on a news kick lately, guys.)

I love Rebecca Traister. Here's why:

I have met babies born at home and in hospitals and through vaginas and through surgery, and I call total bullshit on the idea that there is any one path you can take, or any song you can play as your child is being pushed into the world, that can determine who that child is going to turn out to be. Make the choices that work best for your family, for your body, for your budget and for your sense of well-being. But don't buy into the idea that those choices become your earliest parenting gold stars, or your scarlet letters of birthing shame.

Sing it, sister!

For the record, I have friends who had homebirths, friends who attempted homebirths, friends who had unmedicated hospital births, friends who had medicated hospital births, friends who had emergency/unplanned C-sections, and friends who had planned C-sections. I had a scheduled C-section myself. Although I didn't love recovering from the surgery, I have zero regrets about having had a section, and it is one of the few things in my entire conception/pregnancy/birth/postpartum experience that DIDN'T make me feel like a failure. It irritates me when people (like my therapist) try to make me explore my feelings about having a C-section, as if there is no way a person could come out of such an experience mentally unscarred. I got my baby. We are both alive and healthy. What more could I want?