I DO NOT CONSENT!

You asked me for my Consent

and I knew yes was assumed

My gut told me to dissent

either way i’m doomed

Standing over me, you wait

what must my answer be?

in your hands is my fate

You watch expectantly.

I feel powerless as you insist

Afraid and confused by your persistence

my gut is knotted in a twist

With it’s instinctual resistance.

If I say No, what will result?

I ask with meek concern,

Your answer feels like an assault

If a Yes I spurn

Yet still my gut is warning me

Suggesting another choice

But as you wait, I am not free

I feel without voice

With consent in the spotlight

My response is to freeze

I can not flee , I can not fight

So I try to appease.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Birth Map (@birthmapping)

Now let us re-imagine this disempowered scene

What if instead of consent, Informed Decision Making had been?

Being asking your opinion, which is valued and paramount

In fact the choice is all yours, and the only one to count.

You’ve time and space to consider things, and to be fully informed

And once you reach your conclusion, confidence is spawned.

The way that this can happen, is by thinking in advance

Not by going with the flow, and leaving it to chance.

Decisions made you’ll never use are better than none at all

If none you have, then you can’t, make an informed call.

Catherine Bell is the author of The Birth Map: boldly going where no birth plan has gone before.

Informed. Supported. Confident.

Find out more at birthmap.life The Home of Informed Birth Preparation