I wish someone would have told me

I wish someone would have told me (even if I hadn't listened) that pelvic organ prolapse was a likely outcome following a pregnancy and birth.

I wish someone would have told me......so that I could have been eligible to make informed decisions, even if those decisions hadn't changed the outcome....so that I could have asked more of my providers who asked me if I had any questions. I never had any questions because I didn't have any context....so that I wouldn't have felt like the odd woman out who wasn't as "designed" for birth as my sources had suggested....so that I could have (even for a split second) challenged my stubbornly-held beliefs about the "right" way to birth....so that I would have had someone, ANYONE, to talk to that didn't make *that face* when I tried to explain what was happening....so that I could have examined whether the activities I was doing were the most productive for me. I only knew to care about my baby. I didn't know I needed to mother myself, too....so that maybe I wouldn't have found myself glued to a screen reading every letter of every word of every paragraph about POP at odd hours of the night while I vehemently wished not to resent feeding the infant that "did this to me"....so that I would have been able to develop a plan of action in the event that my reality became my reality.

We pay for insurance on the off-chance our houses burn down, or our cars crash. We send ourselves blindly into birth, ignoring the staggering statistics, and find ourselves grasping for resources in our days of least coherence. You have a much better chance of putting out the fire if you aren't standing in line purchasing the extinguisher while it's burning....so that I would have known that people, including me, will carefully wrap my infant in a blanket of security as my sense of security swiftly unravels. No one, myself included, will ask me if I'm cold.

Maybe, had I known, I could have covered myself preemptively....so that I would have realized earlier just how not-alone I was....so that I would have known exactly where to go....so that I would have known exactly who to call....so that I would have known that it would be okay.

When we seek to shield people from the knowledge that unfavorable outcomes may occur, we are communicating that we don't really have a system of support set up for when things go awry.

When we fail to mention how incredibly common concerns like POP are, we aren't preserving the magic of pregnancy and birth; we're preserving the status quo of failing to treat those who bring children into the world as whole people, deserving of being treated like adults.

When we neglect to inform, we neglect to support. We currently have no way to prevent prolapse from occurring.

We can, however, prevent more people from finding themselves saying "I wish someone would have told me." And, maybe, just maybe - we could actually help them, too.

Haley Shevener is the co-founder of POP UP and is a strength coach, perinatal exercise specialist, and mom with POP in San Francisco.