Somehow, in the last six months or so, I've become a bit of a go-to about whether or not to have babies. I wrote an article about it, which caused all manner of "interesting" responses, was interviewed about said article for tele, and have been consequently asked my opinion on the topic a number of times.

In the end, my piece/opinion could have been boiled down to "not right now, possibly not, check back in a few years".

What I took umbrage with was not the act of having a baby, but the sense that it was the Greatest Thing A Woman Could Do, and the accompanying mystical, fluffy pink rhetoric surrounding the beauty of childbirth and the wondrousness of babies.

Even the language of pregnancy had been cute-ified and infantilised: "baby bump", "push present", "too posh to push", and so on.

So, thank god for Channel 4 and SBS for airing One Born Every Minute.


(Channel 4 don't allow embedding but click the picture to watch the trailer)

There are no "baby bumps" or diamond "push presents" here - only the primal bellowing of women whose uteruses (uterii?) are doing the twist.

"Too posh to push"? It didn't look that posh when the scalpel went sliding through Lucy's abdomen.

I love this show: its catharsis, its heart, and its unsentimental and yet totally moving depiction of the process of bringing new life into the world.

In last week's episode, young mum-to-be Lydia crawled around the bed like a woman possessed, bellowing in Polish. Her most memorable exclamation was "I just keep shitting myself!"

Last night, awaiting her epidural, Julia confirmed to the midwife that "I got pain in my backside and in my minge."

When Sara, on her third bub, worked herself into a wide-eyed lather of panic about the impending birth, the midwife just looked at her and said, sternly but from a place of affection, "Get it together".

And then, yes, there are babies coming out left right and centre. Last night there were a number of shots of a baby's head all the way out, waiting for the next push, just chilling.

Yes, it's instructional viewing. Always having been too scared/immature to watch childbirth videos (and believe me, when it comes to YouTube, they're out there), and attending a school that bypassed that aspect of sex ed completely (we were supposed to be focusing on not getting pregnant by not having sex, so I guess there was no reason to show us the possible end point), I had no idea how they often just... shoot out. Whee!

What strikes you while watching this show is that "the beauty of having babies" isn't beautiful, it's amazing and primal. The reason I bristle at terms like "baby bump" and "push party" is because they reduce these spectacular acts of bravery into something cutesy and wimpy.

One Born Every Minute is honest about the dangers of childbirth without catastrophising, and allows the wonder of the act to speak for itself. I love the way the midwives and doctors just matter of factly say things like "You just had a baby!" and "Here you go, dad". No frills, no bells or whistles, just a job done well by all involved.

Honestly, if the general media discussion surrounding having babies was more like One Born Every Minute and less like the fanciful drivel that most of it is, I probably would have had three by now.