We were sitting across her kitchen table. A tissue was being nervously mangled in her trembling hands.

“I just can’t do it again,” she said.  “Can you tell me about your daughter’s birth,” I asked her?

She explained that everyone told her it was a good birth. Her doctor said it was textbook perfect. Her mother was there and repeated her version of her granddaughter’s birth to everyone who would listen. It was natural. It was quick. It was the best day ever.

And as the story unfolded, tears welled up in my eyes, finally spilling down my own cheeks. It was an awful experience. And my heart broke into pieces again.

She described a birth where she was tortured with screamingly painful vaginal exams, weeping for them to stop, thrashing to escape the confines of the hospital bed where she was tethered to the monitoring machine for policy’s sake, begging to stand up, move, sway, anything to cope with her rapidly advancing labour. Her voice buried under a gentle shush so as not to scare the other mothers.