Should You Stare Directly Into The Maw Of Born In The Wild?

What Is This Thing?

Because of reasons, some women choose to give birth not in hospitals or clinics or the backs of cabs or birthing pools but outside. Because of even less scrutable reasons, some of them have welcomed documentary crews to capture the whole thing for all of us to watch.

When Is It On?

Tuesdays at 10 PM on Lifetime.

Why Was It Made Now?

You know, when I wrote this post back in 2013, I thought the premises I came up with were pretty outlandish. But evidently someone at Lifetime read it and was like, "I've got it!!!" Because this is one show about pregnancy and childbirth that even I couldn't...ahem...conceive of.

What's Its Pedigree?

Matador, the studio that produces it, is also responsible for a lot of other shows that, to put it diplomatically, do not appear as though they are very expensive to produce. (I mean, I saw the Nail'd It pilot and it was definitely made in someone's garage.)

...And?

If the knock against most reality/docuseries is that they're fake, that's probably not a criticism that's going to be thrown at Born In The Wild -- at least, judging by the series premiere. It's the story of Audrey Bird and her husband Peter, who have relocated from San Diego to an extremely remote part of Alaska: according to the narrator, they live 100 miles from the nearest road, on an old logging property that's been closed for a decade and that has no power line or sewage system to their house; they're the only humans who live on their side of the lake. So since the nearest hospital is a plane ride away and Audrey is a midwife, at least no one can say the Birds don't have good reasons for planning to deliver their third baby at home.

As the episode progresses, along with Audrey's labour, their birthing falls apart, and not in ways that feel like producer shenanigans. First, a storm washes out the spot Audrey had chosen on the beach to pitch her birth tent -- on the grounds that "the sand is the softest and there's no leeches over here" -- so they have to relocate to a birch structure Peter had built and that we've already seen collapse once (fortunately when no one was in it). Then, they have to scrap their plans for Audrey to give birth under the sky because the mosquito netting isn't proving equal to the hardy Alaskan mosquitoes. ("The one thing that Audrey does not want to deal with when she's delivering is being torn apart by these mosquitoes," says Peter. That's the...one thing? Weren't you talking earlier about how you were worried the blood from her delivery might attract FUCKING BEARS, DUDE?!) And then, the baby presents face-up, which means a longer labour, and unless a PA snuck in there and turned baby Piper in Audrey's guts, it's super-real.

...But?

SUPER-REAL AND SUPER-GNARLY. I guess if you're pregnant and go through the birthing classes or whatever, they make you watch videos of real childbirth, but the closest I, as a childless person, have ever come to that BEFORE BORN IN THE WILD was, like, the highly sanitized labour scenes from various other messed-up pregnancy shows on TLC. And even though I have watched at least one episode of ALL of those, nothing could prepare me for Audrey's labour.

You guys. It's so upsetting. This is a woman who's given birth twice already -- once in a hospital, which was a bad enough experience that it caused her to swear off "medicalized" childbirth altogether, and the second time at home -- AND a midwife, and the noises she makes are, sincerely, impossible to describe. It sounds like this baby is trying to murder her from the inside out.

And then when the baby comes out...I mean, thank god we see her later and can confirm that she's cute, because she looks so so so gross. It's not even like on scripted shows when they try to goop up what is obviously a six-month-old baby with jam and stuff; this baby's hella wrinkly and gray, a Contact alien.

All this by way of saying, why add to the literal horrors of childbirth by trying to do it outside? At the end of the episode, when everything has (as it were) come out okay -- and by the way, it seems unlikely that any episode will ever air in which something goes badly wrong, which is not exactly presenting a balanced picture -- Audrey lectures, "If home birth wasn't safe, none of us would be here." She does have a point in the anthropological sense. But one of the first things out of her mouth at the top of the episode pooh-poohing people who think having a baby outside is unhygienic, and like...I'm not a germophobe, but I actually think eating outside is kind of unhygienic, never mind any of this nonsense. (Or maybe I just hate picnics.)

But never mind hygiene, or the mosquitoes. There are actual bears all around this property where Audrey wants to have her baby au naturelle. Delivering your baby where any of them could just roll up for a kid nugget and hoping for the best feels like hubris worthy of Werner Herzog, not Lifetime. Although the tone of the show is subdued and not sensationalistic (says the narrator, "According to the American Medical Association, the safest place to give birth is within a hospital complex" -- OH, WORD?!), I have to think that people who've actually been present at more conventional childbirth situations, as participants or coaches, will spend a lot of time screaming abuse at the participants in this insanity.

...So?

The show may not judge these parents, but yooooooou will! If you're into that and have a high tolerance for birth-related gore, this is, ahem, right up your alley. As for me, as much as I love judging people on TV, I absolutely cannot handle seeing one more slimy gray slug ooze out of its mom.