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Record You Giving Birth

Source: Corbis

When my sister’s friend turned 16-years-old, she and her mother watched her birth video. I thought it was the sweetest idea. As someone who was always fascinated with the idea of childbirth and preoccupied with all the memories lost from my own childhood, I would have loved to see the moment I came into the world.

With the hopes that my parents had been withholding a video all these years, I asked them if they had recorded me or my sister’s births.

“No, girl,” my mother said. Then she expounded. “You know, I wanted it to be recorded. And I asked your dad but he said no and I just kind of dropped it. But now, I really do wish we had it.”

My dad, who just so happened to be in the room at the same time, looked a bit sheepish.

“Daddy, why didn’t you record it?”

He offered a couple of excuses like he would have had to rent a camcorder, there was so much going on, he didn’t want to be behind a camera the whole time. And he certainly didn’t want someone else to be filming it.

So my birth story is just that. Aside from the fact that I exist in the world and both of my parent witnessed it, there is no documentation. Surely, that wasn’t uncommon in the late ’80’s. But now, in this digital age where everything is documented, it almost seems a little weird not to have it.

I’ve always said that I wanted to have someone record my labor, if, God willing, I get a chance to experience that. But after seeing these pictures of labor and delivery on Huffington Post, I’m wondering if I should book a photographer now and have him or her wait around until I conceive.

While the photos could be considered graphic by some, and these women certainly at their most glamorous, they really illustrate just how much giving birth is truly a miracle.

Ladies, what do you think, do you want someone to videotape or photograph you in labor why or why not?

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