Expectations and reality don’t always align when it comes to childbirth. Lily Phillips (not that one, she assures us, getting good mileage from her porn star namesake) thought she was well informed. She’d gone through a long process of IVF to get there, attended NCT classes, and, when labour started, she was ready for the if not serene then empowering birthing experience and magical moment of immediate love that would follow.
Instead, she discovered that “birth is barbaric and early motherhood is brutal”. Yet even her NCT WhatsApp group, where she turned after a harrowing hospital experience, requested “no negative birth stories, please”. Crying does a lot to redress the balance and cuts through the “toxic positivity” surrounding childbirth that left Phillips feeling alone.
