Labor Day: Birth Stories for the Twenty-First Century

Editors Henderson (Ten Thousand Saints) and Solomon (The Little Bride) correctly title their introduction, “Expect the Unexpected.” Yes, these stories, by 30 professional writers, include pain, joy, fear, intimacy, bodily fluids, doctors and midwives, birthing centers and home births, natural childbirth, and C-sections. And, though the essays are uneven in quality, an eloquent handful transcend the parenting genre. The collection is greater than the sum of its parts because the pieces often share one of the hallmarks of modern motherhood: disappointment that often stumbles toward shame. Mary Beth Keane writes, “Neither of my children got here the way I’d dreamed…” while Danzy Senna expresses “remorse for having pushed my second out of me early—for inducing labor before my body clock was ready.” Marie Myung-Ok Lee writes, “I can’t help wondering… whether I would have been able to be a more direct agent of my own labor.” Edan Lepucki simply states: “I was still struggling to accept my own labor,” which is, perhaps, the originating idea behind the birth story, the coming to terms with a situation where the line between life and death is palpable, where women both lose and find themselves in a new identity, and where any last illusion of control disappears. (Apr.)