Not a natural label on it!

So, to be honest, I wasn’t going to blog today. Despite being part of “Post a Day” and skipping yesterday, I wasn’t in the mood. Or in the zone. Or inspired. Put whatever spin you want on it. While I do not believe in “writer’s block” per se, I do think that some blogs are best left unpublished. Add to this that current bf is also “feeling gloomy” means I don’t exactly have the distraction I love best (i.e. sex).

However, something interesting happened on the way to the check out line. I went seeking—wait for it, you’ll be profoundly shocked (yes, that was irony, in case you aren’t paying attention)—beer, but I also wanted to buy some “Mexican” cheese because my very favorite chips in the world!!! (i.e. Tortillaria Nixtamal) were in stock at my butcher’s shop, meaning I could make my favorite nachos. However, while I typically grate my outrageously expensive cheese for Italian dishes, for nachos, I break down and buy the 16 ounce processed cheese.

Anyhow, I noticed in my cheese aisle that fully half the cheeses have a “natural” label. I shudder to think what “unnatural” cheese is, but anytime I see “natural” as part of the label, I generally run screaming as though I had just witnessed zombies eating brains in aisle 9. Seriously though, not only does a natural label make me less likely to buy the product, it gets me wondering exactly what that means. What is “natural”? Is DDT natural? Because my grandfather obviously thought so (read my Monsanto confession here).

As irony would have it, my cashier at the check out is 9+ months pregnant. Any day now, her son, Ryan, will be born. As I showed her my label-free cheese, I told her, “Don’t be afraid to take the epidural. The only ‘unnatural’ childbirth is when gnomes go in there and get the baby out!”

Joking aside, it’s amazing to me how women judge each other, like childbirth is some fucking contest to be won. “Oh, I give her vault over the forcepts a 7.2, but the fact that she opted for a Cesarian to save the life of her and her child, well, maybe 4.8.”

When did childbirth become a competitive sport? How did suffering in pain become a plume in one’s hat? I suffer (willingly, btw) at a dom’s discretion, but when it came time for me to give birth to my son, I felt bad when I took the epidural (oh, yeah, I pushed for roughly 17 seconds and his head came out completely symmetrical, as opposed to my daughter who got, well, “stuck”).

There is something really wrong when women demonize one another over a very personal choice. I find it duplicitous that feminists are a-okay about abortion on demand but then judge a woman who wants a spinal (oh, btw, it doesn’t enter the fetus’ bloodstream! and you can still feel every push, thank you medical advancements). It’s time that we accept that up to and until gnomes can transport that baby out of here (beam it out, Scottie!), all births are natural. They should be celebrated. As should the moms who carried those babies.