Erin & Milo | Birth Story Haiku | Contest Announcement

Erin is my sister, and Milo is my nephew.

This Birth Story is in Haiku form, and there is a story behind it. In a text message convo, she had seen my post looking for Birth Stories of any kind. She sent me this picture of Milo - which I had seen beforehand - with the caption "#birthstory". We agreed the picture was amazing, so I asked if I could use it and said to her, "Write a story or a poem - it could even be Haiku!" not expecting that we'd actually start dabbling with creating haiku.

My immediate thought was, am I culturally appropriating the art of Haiku? I don't want to be disrespectful to or make light of Japanese culture. I think maybe what is so interesting about telling a birth story (or part of a birth story) with Haiku is the syllabic limitations. It sort of compels us to be mindful about how we compose the thought, and maybe even is a unique way to help people process their births.

Want to give it a try? How about a little contest to celebrate the launch of East Coast Birth?

I'm thinking each person who submits their Birth Story Haiku + an image from their birth [non-copywrited so I can post it here] between now and the end of April will have a chance to win a brand new Tula blanket set. The Hedgehog one, because that is the brand-new-in-pkg set I have. One contest entry per household, but please feel free to submit more than one Haiku/image if you want. I just came up with this literally as I'm typing this post at 1am, so I will post details & the fine print for sharing later. But let's do this. Birth Story Haiku. Go!

__________

it was new year's eve

not planning a c-section

epic first pic, my boy

__________

__________

Can we just talk for a minute about this image? Because I am lucky to call this particular baby my nephew, I know that his birth was an emergency surgical birth, and that his probably somewhat shell-shocked father took this picture himself from across the room just as Milo was born. The placement of the physician's hands and the camera angle make it so you cannot see his shoulders which gives sort of a strange look. This was taken when smartphones were *brand* new, so I'm thinking he did a pretty darn great job capturing such an epic photograph.

Thank you to my family for supporting all my ventures <3