Birthrape is a common occurrence in our maternity system and way too many of us think that's normal and just what birth is.
Rape is exactly how my grandmother described her three births. It was hard to sit there and listen to her because even all those years later the pain was still very evident and very, very, very intense. She told me it was wonderful for us that hospitals were much better these days yet when my mother gave birth to her three children, the hospital attempted to do the same to her.

The only reason my mother escaped it was because as soon as she got there, she took to the corridors. She was never in her room when they came looking for her She walked and walked until she gave birth, and the birth itself was pretty interventionalist. They were angry with her. My mother's favourite birth memory is of my brother. She refused induction (she was 43+ weeks with a breech baby) and when she finally went into labour he had turned but it was midnight and the staff were busy elsewhere. She gave birth in a completely dark room, my dad by her side, quietly and happily before anyone clicked on!

I didn't know any of this until after my first homebirth. I wish they had told me before. I can only think how lucky I was that I chose to homebirth in the first place as I'm not the sort of person who would accept routine intervention as normal or needed in birth. My mum came on the hospital tour with me and said to me that she didn't see me being able to birth there either. How I loved her for that voice of support!