Welcome to First the Egg!

what this site is and how to use it

First the Egg aims to be a nonsexist space for people who want to learn, reflect, commiserate, or laugh about being pregnant, giving birth, and helping children grow up whole and happy. For the purposes of this site, a feminist approach to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting:

• challenges the strong gender norms and biases that are so central to mainstream birth and parenting culture–and often to ‘natural’/alternative birth culture as well,
• honors the immense range of individual experiences, values, needs, and situations rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach,
• seeks to empower individuals and families to make truly informed decisions on their own terms,
• and is sensitive to and questioning of dynamics of power, including issues of privilege, injustice, and authority.

Nothing on this site is intended as medical advice. (I have absolutely zero medical training, for starters. I think we can all agree that taking medical advice from someone whose only postgraduate degree is in English literature is a pretty bad plan.) Instead, First the Egg offers starting places for education and exploration. I choose links and resources based on whether they seem useful for actively thinking (and feeling) our individual ways through the important and complicated decisions, issues, and experiences surrounding pregnancy, birth, and parenting. In other words, I’m going for thought-provoking and cannot guarantee the accuracy of any of these resources; I certainly cannot predict how their various perspectives will interact with your own needs, body, and situation.

Please be in touch if you know of other great resources or if you find a broken link or other problem on this site.

You can navigate First the Egg a few ways:

• The horizontal menu at the top of each page leads to information and further resources on women’s health, pregnancy, birth, and parenting.
• The categories in the right column (scroll down a bit) lead to blog posts relevant to each topic.
• The search bar (top right) searches both the informational pages and the blog posts.

You can contact me with ideas or questions at

Feel free to link to this site and its pages/posts, but please do not reproduce any of my writing or images without my permission.

Thanks for visiting!

[back to contents]

My name’s Molly Westerman. Like everyone, I write from a particular perspective and out of my own experiences–though I do strive to be aware of the limitations of my perspective and of the many different and valuable perspectives around me. I am:

• a woman in my 30s
• a literary scholar (I have a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill–with expertise in twentieth-century British novels–and love teaching and reading literature)
• a sometimes-professor who no longer wants to find a tenure-track job
• a sometimes-librarian (reference & instruction) and always-lover-of-libraries
• the parent of one young child, a fantastic person named Noah
• heterosexually partnered–married, even
• totally head-over-heels in love with my partner, our child, and our animals (Zoe, widely acknowledged to be the best dog in the whole world, and Margot, our chatty and apparently sarcastic African Grey parrot)
• white
• a native of Kentucky: I’ve also lived in Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, and Minnesota (but never–so far–outside the US)
• totally in love with the Twin Cities
• able-bodied
• skinny
• sarcastic
• suspicious of the status quo
• one of those people who’ve dyed their hair just about every color they could think of
• an animal lover and a longtime vegetarian
• a foodie
• usually a ‘working mother’–I both have to work outside the home (my income is most of how we live/eat/etc.) and want to do non-parenting intellectual and/or creative work whether from home or away from home –and no, I don’t even a little bit play what’s so condescendingly referred to as ‘mommy wars’ and absolutely understand that the best choice for some parents (of whatever gender) is to stay home full-time with their children
• someone who pretty much only wears skirts and is, well, a little wardrobe-obsessed (if I had time and an actual working sewing machine, I’d design and make all my clothes)
• the child of happily divorced parents
• somebody’s little sister; nobody’s big sister

In some ways I am a stereotypical earthy-birthy crunchy ‘natural birth’ advocate:

• I gave birth out of hospital (in a freestanding birth center), attended by midwives, and would prefer to to give birth at home if I have another child. [Our birth story is here.]
• For me, birthing did not just give me a child. It gave me an astounding and lasting sense of power, increased self-awareness, greater intimacy and openness with my partner, unbelievably beautiful memories, a new and improved relationship with my own body and sexuality, and lots of other mushy-gushy stuff that I value deeply.
• I breastfed until my child decided to stop, and I loved it. I miss it a million times a zillion. I believe passionately that breastfeeding needs and deserves far greater social, cultural, and practical support.
• I’ve trained with DONA as a birth doula.
• I read birth blogs like normal people read news sites or celebrity magazines.
• We let our kid nap on us instead of in his crib until he was a year old. And, while there were times when I really really wanted to get up to pee but didn’t want to wake him, I loved having him breathing on me and looking down at his sleeping face while I wrote my dissertation. His lips barely parted, head tilted back, eyes softly closed. Mmmm.
• We don’t like toys with batteries (toys that make noises, talk, sing, light up, move, etc.) and have a suspicious number of wooden toys. Plus some made from recycled milk cartons.
• We exclusively used cloth diapers, and will again if and when we’re able to have a second child.
• We didn’t expose our child to television or movies until he was two, we don’t have cable (or indeed a television that’s hooked up), and we now only watch occasional movies, Shaun the Sheep episodes borrowed from the library, and random YouTube videos of animals playing as ‘special treats.’ Or as I’m-sick-please-let’s-just-lie-down pleas.
• We seek out medical practitioners who are happy with critically-thinking and curious patients/parents. We tend to avoid medication if there are nonpharmaceutical approaches to try first. We lurve family practice nurse practitioners (we don’t use a pediatrician) because they tend to meet with us longer and offer a whole-family and wellness-oriented approach. Our current care provider gave birth to her own child at home.
• When he was three and four, our son referred to vegetarian food as “regular food,” as in “Why can’t they just eat regular food?”
• I’m suspicious of plastic. And of nonorganic dairy products.
• We’re baby-wearers who’ve never used a stroller. Hippies! Hippies!

And in some ways I’m not:

• I believe that every woman/family has legitimately different needs, priorities, and resources and therefore different ‘best options’ for baby feeding.
• On the same note, I believe that every woman/family has legitimately different needs, priorities, and resources–and labors–and therefore different ‘best options’ for pain relief in labor.
• While I breastfed Noah, I worked. Instead of gazing lovingly into my nursing baby’s eyes, I was typically doing research online, writing, revising, emailing students, planning classes, etc. (At the time, I was teaching college courses and writing a dissertation.) And I didn’t feel guilty about it, either.
• We don’t co-sleep. All the time … I guess what I’m saying is that our bed-sharing has not been wholehearted: baby Noah in our bed after the super-early-morning breastfeeding to get a few extra hours of sleep; five-year-old Noah on the crib mattress on the floor next to our bed all night to ward off nightmares. We are neither poster children for co-sleeping nor poster children for the Never Ever Share a Bed with Your Child folks.
• The baby-wearing thing is totally out of convenience, not out of a strict adherence to ‘attachment parenting’ or any other ‘parenting style.’ Strollers just seem like such a huge pain. I know they work for some people, but we’re all about a sling or backpack-style carrier that we can fold up and stick in the diaper bag when the child’s not in it. Not to mention being able to climb stairs, use escalators, hike, get in and out of shuttles at the airport (and actually walk all the way to the airplane seat before unloading bags and child simultaneously), and so forth with ease.
• We don’t avoid or delay standard vaccinations.
• We don’t plan to homeschool. [Oh, crap, now we're considering it! Uh oh. Stay tuned ...]
• I have huge problems with the term ‘natural birth’ because I have huge intellectual and ethical problems with the loaded and vague term ‘natural.’ I prefer the term ‘low-intervention birth’ (or ‘unmedicated birth,’ if that’s what is meant).
• I also have huge problems with certain heavily-gendering and essentializing aspects of the natural childbirth movement.

I’m a lot of other things, too, but I hope that gives you an idea of why–and from what angle–I’ve built this site. Thanks for reading!