The opening scene of This Is Going To Hurt, the BBC drama based on Adam Kay’s bestselling memoir about his time as a junior doctor on an NHS labour ward, sees a pregnant woman doubled over in pain outside the hospital with a tiny arm hanging out of her vagina. It’s a brutal visual image and one I can’t stop thinking about.
The show’s subsequent births — natural and C-section — come with varying degrees of horror and barbarity. For me, as someone who doesn’t have a baby but is thinking seriously about it, the shocking part was that none of it (the blood, the gore, the agony) was dramatised to make good telly. In fact, it is probably the most realistic depiction of birth to ever be shown on TV.
The show’s producers — who worked closely with Kay on the adaptation — enlisted medical advisers and real hospital staff were cast in the surgery scenes. “Our biggest inspiration was war photography,” producer Holly Pullinger said in a Times interview, telling us everything about the lens through which This Is Going To Hurt presents childbirth. We already knew labour was painful but now here it is — each perineal tear and prolapsed umbilical cord — for all to see.
For women who have experienced traumatic births (so… all of them?), This Is Going To Hurt was deeply triggering, while others found the humour and blitheness with which the show approached female pain misogynistic.
For me, a woman of a certain age who is feeling the pressure to procreate, it has resulted in yet another mark on my “Reasons Not to Have a Baby” list (others include “Not a millionaire, can’t afford it” and “I like my boobs the way they are”). The problem is this: I know too much. The longer I’ve left the baby thing, the more women I know who have had them. With no exception, it sounds horrific.
More than a few of them are in therapy for PTSD, most of them are wrestling with a loss of identity and all of them are exhausted. They share stories of bleeding nipples, of panicked midnight trips to the hospital, of boredom and depression. NB: I’m sure there are moments of joy too, but no one I know talks about them. Sharing is caring and forewarned is forearmed, but with all this horror, is it any wonder the birth rate in this country is falling? ONS data show the UK’s fertility rate is at a record low and half of women do not have a child by the time they’re 30.
Of course, there is so much more behind the plummeting stats than the prospect of a tortuous birth (women are made of hardy stuff, this we know). The cost of living is set to rise by £1,200 per year and that doesn’t take into account childcare. For that, a typical double-income couple can expect to part with 35 per cent of their wages. And those wages are stagnating while average house prices skyrocket.
An ageing population is bad news for many reasons, but it’s going to take me and a growing number of women some convincing that all the pain is worth it.
London is roaring back to life
London is roaring back to life. Can anyone else feel it? Slight #humblebrag here, but I’ve been to five parties in as many days. Last week the sighting of Kate Moss having a ciggy outside boyfriend Nikolai von Bismarck’s book signing caused a paparazzi scrum; last night over at Bistrotheque, model Irina Shayk kicked off London Fashion Week and tonight our very own ES Magazine’s relaunch bash will be the hottest ticket in town (don’t come for us, storm Eunice).
There have been exhibition openings, intimate performances at members’ clubs by artists who haven’t been able to perform in years and I’ve witnessed some killer looks from party pro Lady Mary Charteris, left. It is pure joy to see the city full of life again. Less joyful are the hangovers. But the remedies remain the same: carbs when you get in, Anadin and WFB* (work from bed) the next day.
