It’s three weeks now since I gave birth to my third (and final!) child, and despite what I know about how long it takes, and how patient I need to be, for that baby belly to dissipate, I find myself near the end of a long, dark tunnel of sacrificing my body for my children, and the light on the other side of a few months of breastfeeding is one I want to sprint towards to get my body back forever!

For most of the last 9 months, I’ve been literally focusing on enduring one day at a time of constant heartburn and severe nausea, telling myself, This is the last time you have to go through this; you can do hard things.

And by the end, when you feel that extra fifty pounds of pressure on your pelvis with every step, and those demands from your children for extra juice or more cheese make you resentful because of those extra steps, you will do–or ignore–almost anything to get this baby out of me.

Including putting up with body shaming. Not the kind where other people make you feel ashamed of the state of your body, but the kind where they roll their eyes at whatever remnants of modesty you want to retain in the process of having the state of your cervix checked, or not wanting 6 nurses in the room while you’re getting an epidural, or not wanting to completely bare your breasts while you’re still pushing out a placenta.

They say things like, “Oh, don’t worry honey, we’ve seen it all!” As if that’s supposed to reassure me, to make me want to just get totally naked and not care. Guess what! You haven’t seen it all! My body is not an interchangeable part on the conveyor belt of L&D!

Of course, the first time around, you’re a novice, and you don’t know that when you put on that ONE hospital gown they provide you with, they’re going to have to flip it completely up every time the fetal monitor slips out of place, which they don’t warn you about, because they’re so used to it. And having spent 30+ years consciously covering yourself, you’re reaction is WTF? But it’s ok! They say. “We’ve seen it all!”

So the next time you get smart, and ask for TWO gowns, one for the top, and one for the bottom. And the third time around, they just give you a gown and a folded sheet, with no instructions. And you’re like, How am I supposed to interpret this? So you keep your shirt on and put the gown on the bottom half. And when the nurse tells you in her nicest, most condescending voice, “That’s what the sheet is for,” but you’re too busy breathing through a contraction to respond, Maybe you should have told me what you wanted first!, you suck it up. And when she says, “It’s ok, we’ve seen it all!” you want to cram that gown down her throat.

And then you get a nurse who does something completely unexpected: she tells you what she needs to do, how she needs to do it, and then she asks, “Is that okay?”

What a concept! Asking permission! Like I’m a sentient, thinking human agent instead of a collection of anatomical parts that need fixing.

A friend recently shared a link to this documentary in the works about birth trauma, and the endless stories of women who have experienced some form of degradation in their birth experiences. Of course, the 4 minute clip leaves you hanging a bit–what exactly happened to this woman? What have these people gone through that leads to PTSD? And to be honest, I watched it with suspended belief, thinking, “Really? You’re equating a nurse checking your dilation with rape? Come on.”

And then I started remembering that feeling of vulnerability, of being the one in the room without a medical degree, and the Subject (or more accurately, the Object) of study, completely helpless and in pain–and the difference it makes when they ask you for your consent before sticking their hands inside you. And I thought, “I get it.”

Having a medical degree, having caught a certain number of babies, having inserted a certain number of catheters into people who can barely reach their nether parts, should NOT absolve you of treating their bodies like cadavers, even if they can’t feel their own legs.

Of course, I am completely ignorant of just what kind of bedside training is available for nurses out there. I tend to think it’s similar to the teaching profession; you can get all the degrees and training in the world, but there are some abilities that are innate. For example, recognizing that the blank stares of your students means they’re not getting this–let’s shift to another tactic, rather than sticking to your lesson plan. Or, they’re not paying attention at all–time to find a guinea pig and use some real world examples. Teaching strategies are worth little if you can’t interpret body language.

Respect for the body must not be merely a matter of avoiding comparison to other bodies; it must recognize autonomy. Making this paradigm shift may come down to changing the vocabulary from the “patient,” one definition of which is “one that is acted upon,” to something less passive, more cooperative. (Though I confess, I’m at a loss for an accurate word; the economic connotations that cling to the terms “client” or “patron” don’t quite satisfy me. Perhaps it is our language itself that is the root of the problem.)

So: Thank you to the nurses and doctors who consider this. Who instinctively know how to approach people in their most vulnerable state–with respect. How to listen. And how to treat people like people rather than bodies.