I felt dismayed by the expectations I had held, as I realized how false and ideologically motivated they were. I had been misled. This was, I could see, partly a failure of language. Our vocabulary occludes the maternal: we do not have words for the different kinds of pain that occur in childbirth. “Pain” just doesn’t cut it. And partly it was because of the continuing taboo around birth, even within the spaces where talking about tearing vaginas should happen. Remembering the moment when the pain was most severe, I felt furious. Angry that I hadn’t been warned. And even though the physical
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