I have the flu. While this isn't relevant to a Birth Blog, it's relevant to why I'm sitting here watching birth shows on tv all day. I rarely do this simply because my idea of watching Birth TV is similar to a Florida-Florida State rivalry day or worse. Perhaps a Miami-Florida State game? I've been known to yell at the tv or roll my eyes at the stupid comments that people say. The "Her doctor has decided to induce her" line is usually what gets me. I realize it's just the TV crew's line but can we at least ask the person who is having the baby if that is what she wants? And have you EVER seen an informed consent process on those shows?

So, as I'm watching this one show, the Duggars 20 Years, 20 Duggars, about to flip the channel, they ask her to talk about each of her births. This fascinated me so heavily, I recorded the program. Twenty births and she REMEMBERS all of them as separate occasions. Events that are individual. She remembers how she felt, how she recovered and what impact they had on her. I had to wonder,

Will women watching this understand how educated she is about her birth choices and how encouraging, soft and amazing she sounds when she talks about her natural births? She talks positively about the circumstances because even when she is not in control, she has always demanded respect for her choices. Michelle Duggar is an unlikely women's rights activist with her soft-spoken ways but even if you disagree with her choices on how many children she has given birth to, you have to recognize the strength in her and the love she has for her children to be so involved in their births and their lives.

Several years ago, Jim Bob Duggar reached out to the birth community for support of VBAC and to try to find out more about the legal climate, etc. His wife even left one care provider at one point that we are aware of (according to one of the TV specials) in order to have a VBAC.

Think what you like, I feel like her choices are impacting other women's choices. If not for any other reason, she is a pretty obvious case study that shows VBAC is not impossible. Not for singletons, not for twins and not for multiparous mothers.

When other celebrities talk about their births, the stories that I've noticed in the last few years is that they are now avoiding stating HOW the child is born. Nicole Ritchie raved about her easy vaginal birth as well and talked about her birth story. I have tried to find other birth stories online about celebrities in recent years and I find that cesarean moms simply don't share as much. I did find Brooke Shields' story in her book to be captivating because her induction turned cesarean traumatized her so severely, she turned away from vaginal birth at all without really exploring what role induction played in it. Caught in a depression so deep, she went on a book tour and tv shows to talk about Post Partum Depression but without the context of questioning birth choices.

I just sat here wondering what impact this is having on the "you should be grateful" silence that so many mothers have experienced? We know that many cesarean moms simply do not discuss the trauma out in public and would a few well-placed celebrity stories of how their cesareans affected their lives, their careers, their body image really give us an outlet for women to discuss their traumas in public?

After all, if Michelle Duggar can have 20 children and talk about natural birth, where is the spokeswoman out there who will talk about the truth about cesareans? Are celebrities not sharing for the same reasons we aren't? Is it simply too painful to get out in the open?