Years ago, I ran into a classmate whom I hadn’t seen for years. I asked her how she was, and she replied, “You won’t believe it—I gave birth a week ago.” I complimented her for her slim figure. She smiled and said it was an easy labor, without complications, and that she was so happy with the newborn baby and glad to return to her daily routine. Despite her smiling face, as she spoke, tears began running down her cheeks. “Why are you crying?” I asked, and she responded, “I don’t know what happened to me when I gave birth. Something is broken; I don’t know what it is and how to fix it.”

After having given birth three times, having used my academic skills to examine the depiction of giving birth in fiction and films, and having taught fiction that includes scenes of labor, I came to understand that no single human experience is as repressed as giving birth. If we were to examine Western fiction, films, philosophical and religious writings—even psychological research—we would have to conclude that this very primal act is largely ignored. Most people would compare it to other life-defining events: falling in love, marriage, separation from a spouse, illness, losing a loved one, or undergoing a trauma (accident, war, etc.). There are plenty of literary examples for all these events,........

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