I watched the above tribute to Carol King who co-wrote the above song. I love this song! (I love music) but this song features heavily in my childhood memories as my mum often played Carol King’s version from the ‘Tapestry’ album. Yet, last night after watching soul legend and original performer Aretha Franklin sing it,  it was suddenly given new life. The lyrics resonated so much to me, as a women and mother I felt like I’d been given new ears to hear it.

This led me to think about the importance of being ‘natural’ which means “in accordance with nature” and it got me thinking about the term often used during pregnancy ‘natural birth’. The term ‘natural birth’ means “unmedicated approach to labor with minimal routine intervention”. However, as we already know mother nature doesn’t always allow this to happen and intervention is often required for the safety of both mum and baby. But isn’t that nature’s way of saying ‘Hey! Can you give us some help please?  What puzzles me (and saddens) is when a women shares her birth story and seems somewhat ashamed to say they’ve needed intervention or had a c-section. Almost as if they’ve under achieved.

Regardless of a women’s birth journey, no woman should ever feel any more or any less of a women because they didn’t have a ‘natural birth’. Every women is unique and her self worth should always be preserved.  We are all women embarking on a journey of some sort and one of the most challenging is motherhood. Let’s not get too hung up on ‘natural birth’ or ‘natural mother’ let’s focus on being ‘natural women’ together.

Denyce x