Finding Pleasurable Birth in VBAC

Roanna Rosewood’s Cut, Stapled, & Mended: When One Woman Reclaimed Her Body and Gave Birth on Her Own Terms After Cesarean is an incredibly honest, exquisitely written book for mothers, women recovering from traumatic birth, doctors, midwives, nurses, all birthworkers, expectant parents, pregnant women, and fathers.

Cut, Stapled, & Mended is like a beautifully detailed birth story arching over Roanna’s first two cesarean births and third birth- a healing, pleasurable, bubbly VBAC, complete with her insights to birth and a broken maternity system. The book is about childbirth and about “the exquisite and raw birth of a woman” and we get to witness this via delightful treks into her life of running a restaurant, traveling to Hawaii, and mothering her two boys and husband who have creative ideas of play: “When the dish soap goes missing, I find it and the three of them on the trampoline.They have added water from the garden hose and are jumping—Dad and Avram fully clothed, Jonah buck-naked—in mountains of suds.”

Sadly the most challenging part of Roanna’s story is common to so many- as consumers we trust our doctors and facilities only to find this approach didn’t work. Roanna admits: “As an articulate person, I had assumed I would be able to rationalize through labor, to troubleshoot, to concentrate and verbalize and make decisions. I was wrong.” After we are taken thru the heartbreak of this very traumatic first birth, we head towards her second birth with more optimism and although, it too results in cesarean surgery, the experience is better and mom is able to employ different pleasurable birth techniques: “Our Hypnobirthing routine works well. I don’t experience “pain,” the surges continue to be manageable.” And after the surgery they receive MotherBaby Friendly care: “I am grateful for the gift of this profound time, to be the first person my baby sees, to allow the familiar beat of my heart to comfort him, and to have the dignity, privacy and warmth of my little cave…””

For birth number three, mom goes into full training mode even having found acceptance: “If we have to go through a cesarean, it will be okay. Birth is not everything.We have an entire lifetime to share.” But instead she finds herself in a place where she can say: “Where before there was pain, now there is only exquisite pleasure.” And to her a “merbaby” is born!

This is such an important and beautifully written book for anyone preparing for pleasurable birth, recovering from traumatic birth, as well as all birthworkers- doctors, doulas, nurses, and midwives alike. Enjoy your read of Cut, Stapled, & Mended – you won’t want it to end!

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Roanna is an the author of  Cut Stapled and Mended: When One Woman Reclaimed Her Body and Gave Birth on Her Own Terms After Cesarean, an award-winning international speaker, co-founder and host of Birth Plan Radio, and the executive action chair of Human Rights in Childbirth and most importantly, a mother. In her not-so-humble opinion, the latter makes her a true birth expert.

Hear more from Roanna in the en*theos Orgasmic Birth Virtual Conference as she discusses Finding the Courage to Birth and how we cannot numb ourselves to fear, pain, and death, without also numbing ourselves to courage, pleasure, and life. Labor doesn’t come from nowhere, when contractions begin. It’s the physical manifestation of our experiences throughout life and pregnancy. Fear of labor isn’t bad thing. It illuminates the specific work you can do to prepare for labor.