If you ask me, there are just a handful of things that are “better” done outside. S’mores. Water balloon fights. Running. Picnics.
If I spent 10 years adding to this list, I promise you “giving birth” would still not make the cut. Because that’s fucking crazy.
Have you heard of the Lifetime reality show, Born in the Wild? These women have scanned the horizon of what’s trendy in birthing (holistic, drug-free bravery that I respect eternally) and thought, NAW.
NAW, MAN.
For me, ME, this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to pump this kid out in front of many crew members who will never eat rare beef again. My shit is going to make Jane Goodall look like Kim Kardashian. I’m going to thump my chest and say NO THANK YOU to clean linens and cool washcloths.
I’m going to crouch down and let my wrinkled screaming newborn gently slam down into the raw earth that they will again become one with when they die. Circle of LIFE, motherfuckers!
The question everyone will ask is why do this?
You don’t do this in a void.
You don’t crouch with the moistest part of you (aka every bug’s manna) throbbing just inches away from the Earth and then never speak of it again.
Just like the tree falling in a forest needs an audience to verify it’s thunderous move from the sky down to the dirt, you don’t just expel a wet human from your loins into a soaked spot of dank and save the story for your journal. You regale EVERYONE YOU EVER MEET with this tale, PVR’d for the ages.
This is your story to top all stories of all time ever.
A Mommy Wars meets Humble Brag (MomBle Brag if you will) that takes all prisoners.
That part of the evening where chairs get pushed back, cloth napkins catch the crumbs off the side of your wine-rouged mouths, legs cross and uncross, and you gently bide your time. Nodding with a whisper of a smile on your face. Waiting until that perceptible gap in the conversation where you casually drop in, “Well, that one time I SHIT OUT A KID IN THE WOODS…blah blah Montessori blah blah weather blah blah cloth diapers…”
You have a never-ending supply of rebukes, shut downs and one-upmanship that will go a little something like this:
Them: “Juniper is reading! At just 6 months old! She can’t get enough of the Fountainhead!”
You: “Ah. Just delightful. That time I gave birth IN THE WOODS, we used an actual piece of a decaying fountain to scoop the placenta out of some moss and directly into our chia salad!”
Them: “Sidney has opened an Etsy shop to sell her rainbow loom tourniquets!”
You: “Remember that time a family of ladybugs and silkworms spun a tie-dyed web net to catch my kid when I gooshed it out IN THE WOODS?”
Them: “Sherman is graduating head of his class – Sylvan really is great at making nerds!”
You: “How wonderful! We just received a Graduation Letter, illegibly written and hand-delivered by a one-eyed crow, from the six generations of robin red breasts that attended the birth of my kid IN THE WOODS.”
Them: “I think I want to use Songza for my birthing playlist – they just get me.”
You: (Delighted chortle): Great idea! The sweet yodelling serenade Tarzan bestowed upon us when I GAVE BIRTH IN THE WOODS will be stuck in my head forever.”
One thing these vagina Amazons may not have considered is the butterfly effect. Bringing your birth story into a meadow near a stream disturbs that piece of nature and every wildlife creature nearby, now hugging itself and rocking back and forth. There is a good chance your actions could severely alter everything we know and hold true. The badgers and foxes and beetles and salmon and mosquitoes that hear your deep guttural wails have a new marker in their DNA. Feel that? That’s a perceptible shift. That’s risky business, wild women.
All I’m saying is that if you’re okay with a new world where a raccoon can be President, then keep on keeping on. But if you ask me, that’s fucking crazy.
26 Comments
NAW MAN.
HOLY SHIZ-NIT! What the living what!?! Sometimes, I am convinced I’m not really a female, because I find myself more and more in a situation where I want to smack some sense into these chicks. And this? Would be one of them.
I think a racoon for president is something we should seriously consider. Those assholes GET SHIT DONE.
I have to agree with Shannon on this one.
So true. I’d like to elect the one in my backyard. He seems motivated. And I’d really like him to take his stripey ass out from under my deck and down to the white house.
“every wildlife creature nearby, now hugging itself and rocking back and forth” Bwhahahahahaha. THAT’S AWESOME!!!
“IN THE WOODS” … is now the new “that’s what she said” in my house.
That’s awesome
This is off the hook Brooke! I want to sit in a pool of water, pound my chest and have my husband rub me with mossy sticks while I deliver in the hospital room in the next couple months. That’s the farthest I will go to outdoor births.
“That time I gave birth IN THE WOODS, we used an actual piece of a decaying fountain to scoop the placenta out of some moss and directly into our chia salad!” HAHAHAHAHA! You slay me.
NAW MAN. I don’t know how many times I need to say that. NAAAAAAW MAN!
Oh hell no.
What happened to these people?
Not for me. Nope. No thanks.
She’s also going to get assigned every shitty job in the PTA, because if you can have your kid in the woods ON PURPOSE then surely you can plan a carnival for an entire school single handedly. She should have thought that one through.
Awesome piece Brooke. Even though the photo keeps coming up on my phone screen while I’m at the kids’ school, making for some awkward rapid scrolling. On the upside, I have now been asked to LEAVE the PTA.
They have lost their cotton pickin’ minds.
Every sentence was poetry Btooke. You effing nailed it. Vagina Amazon. Omg. Raccoons. Seriously. I want your brain for the weekend.
Jesus. I don’t even respect holistic, drug-free bravery. This is just insane.
This is what I will say the next time someone remarks on something totally batshit crazy and says, ‘What’s next?” I’m going to say, “A reality show where women give birth in the woods. EXCEPT IT’S REAL.”
Wow. I really have no words. Well, that’s a lie. How did I miss this new show? I am going to start searching for heavenly grassy places to birth another human. Preferably one where squirrels and/or raccoons are part of the ‘birthing team’.
Imma gonna have give this the NO FUCKING WAY EVAH stamp. WTF.
Dying laughing!
“that one time I SHIT OUT A KID IN THE WOODS” Bwahahaha!
I am terrified i will stumble upon this show while channel-surfing
I’m offended. I birthed my 15 pound daughter in the back woods of Rocky Mountain National Park and the wildlife was totally enraptured and captivated by the process. I feasted on my placenta when it was still warm, nursing my child with my 4 inch nipples. The raccoon was kind enough to lend me her teeth in the cutting of the cord and the magpies ca-cawed my after birth play list. I do agree that having cameras there is unnecessary , but being at one with nature was amazing and laid the groundwork for future generations to come.
Bonus points if you used a mud poultice to reduce the swelling on your tender female parts afterward. 😉
That is so high on the nasty scale… I can’t even…
hilarious!
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