This is flat-out brilliant. My own childbirth experiences are far in the past now, so I hadn’t been very aware of the current social atmosphere surrounding it. In those days it was more about being “natural” —ie, no drugs. But to me it’s a totally amoral process. The idea that women have any control over it is largely an illusion — having a fetus fall out through your faulty cervix at 21 weeks will teach you that — and expectations of some kind of transformative experience must often lead to feelings of guilt.