A valiant, vital guide to reclaiming your agency and authentic healing in a medical establishment that so often dismisses women’s pain.

For women navigating a medical establishment that too often dismisses their pain, figuring out how to heal can be a complicated journey. Dr. Tracy Shevell has experienced this phenomenon firsthand; both as an OB-GYN treating high-risk pregnancies, as well as a patient herself seeking answers for a mysterious chronic illness. Now, in Labor and Deliverance, Dr. Shevell presents a bold new model of medicine: one that centers women’s experiences, honors their emotional health as regards healing as both a medical and spiritual journey. Her unconventional prescription: self-worth will get you better faster.

Labor and Deliverance is told through the multi-dimensional stories of nine patients, all with different backgrounds, birth stories, and healing journeys. Through it all, Dr. Shevell weaves her own story of secretly battling a debilitating mystery illness, as she pinched herself to stay awake during meetings and snuck off to vomit in between rounds. Meanwhile, her own doctors brushed it off as “just anxiety.”
As the kaleidoscope of these stories turns, you’ll discover how to reclaim the healthcare you deserve beyond medical gaslighting and diagnostic uncertainty. Dr. Shevell's clinical advice covers:

• Practical steps to take today to take your healing seriously, even when no one else will
• Pro tips for symptoms tracking and scripts for talking to your provider so they will listen
• How to safely explore your body’s emotional history
• Strategies for finding the right provider and effective alternative healthcare options

With the page-turning narrative power of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and the expert edge of books like Expecting Better, this book reckons with the many ways the healthcare system fails women while reconnecting readers with their inherent wisdom and inspiring renewed agency and advocacy for their wellbeing.