Women of the world rejoice! Gina Crossly-Corcoran, The Feminist Breeder, is planning to live blog her homebirth for your edification. I know, I know; you’re overcome with gratitude that a self important person like Gina has arranged to exploit share what ought to be an private, intimate and deeply personal experience with everyone in the whole world in order to publicize herself homebirth.
Gina has thoughtfully ensured that no one will miss a moment!
… I will have a widget embedded directly into my blog on a special page sponsored by Brio Birth where my Documentarian … can post LIVE updates, pictures, video clips, and audio clips of my entire birth experience as it is happening. They even have a nifty iPhone app that allows her to shoot video/pictures/sound on her phone and upload it immediately for everyone’s viewing pleasure. The great thing about that is that we’ll be mobile, so if we want to go walk in the woods, she can follow us there and still post updates…
… When I start labor, readers will be notified and can start following along. You can even submit comments or questions through this widget, and my Documentarian, Erica, will answer and publish anything she deems appropriate.
Thank goodness Gina has thought of everything. I’d be awfully disappointed to miss audio of Gina’s grunts of pain, pictures of vomit during transition and actual video of fecal contamination of the birth pool. Who wouldn’t?!
Why is she doing this? For you, dear reader. Three of the four reasons Gina gives for live blogging “her” birth are all about YOU including:
I have a platform and an opportunity to educate…
To show that it doesn’t have to be perfect…
I know many of my readers will be excited to follow along…
Silly me. I though birth was about having a baby. Evidently not. Gina’s baby is not mentioned even once. It’s about Gina and her willingness to graciously educate YOU, show YOU that birth doesn’t have to be perfect, and because YOU are so excited that you can’t imagine anything better to do with your time than follow every moment of stranger’s labor.
You probably can’t tell from what I’ve written, but I’m just a teeny, tiny bit cynical about Gina’s motivation. Here’s what I suspect Gina’s reasons are for live blogging “her” birth.
1. She’s a narcissist.
2. She thinks childbirth is a piece of performance art, and like all performance requires an audience.
3. She thinks she is the star; the baby isn’t even mentioned as supporting cast.
4. She’s jealous of the attention showered on the British woman who tweeted her birth and hopes to get some for herself.
And most importantly:
5. She’s a narcissist.
In case you are wonder if she is a narcissist, consider this charming paragraph:
I really wish that I could say that I made this decision as a reaction to that horrible new Lifetime TV show, but honestly, this has been in the works for a month. I brought the idea up to my husband and he thought it was one of the best ideas I’ve ever had… And then I asked Brio Birth if they wanted to sponsor the page to help me offset the cost, to which they immediately agreed…
This is one of the best ideas she ever had?
I’m surprised that Gina didn’t approach Fox; they are famous for shows that feature ordinary people so pathetically desperate for attention that they will do anything and flaunt everything for their 15 minutes of fame. No doubt she’s disappointed that she can’t get herself on TV, but at least she has a sponsor!
Don’t think that this is only about her. She cares about the baby you, too.
I imagine that people will have questions about this, so I’m happy to field them in the comments section. Let me know what you want to know!
Okay, Gina, here’s what I want to know:
Does birth have anything to do with the baby, or is it all about you?
addendum: Gina has tried to block my link to her site, but apparently she doesn’t realize that I can simply link to the cached version. You can find it here. And I guess she also doesn’t realize that you can can access the post directly by putting http://thefeministbreeder.com/the-big-fat-announcement-im-live-blogging-my-homebirth/ into your browser. She apparently thinks that my readers will not be able to access her site, but, of course they still can.
