Kathryn Mora said her first experience giving birth wasn't at all what she had hoped.
The Los Angeles native, who now lives in Waltham, said she was left alone in a hospital room, except for a nurse who showed up once in a while, yelling at her to "relax" while reminding her she'd be there for several more hours.
The doctors in the delivery room, she said, barely acknowledged her.
"The doctors were talking about their golf game when I was experiencing the most important day of her life," Mora remembered.
Mora said she received an injection in her spine. Numb from the waist down, her baby was yanked out with forceps and rushed away quickly. She wouldn't see her newborn son, Scott, for 10 hours.
"I said then, 'this is never going to happen to me again'," she said.
That was more than 40 years ago. About two years later, in preparation of the birth of her next child, John, Mora and her husband, Luis, took classes to help her to relax. They also found a doctor who performed natural childbirth.
"It just went so beautifully," Mora said of giving birth naturally. That experience led Mora to dedicate much of her life to educating women on the benefits of natural childbirth.
"I became a certified childbirth educator and started my own program in Los Angeles," she said.
Mora, a journalist who has written a number of articles on the subject, and now has ventured into filmmaking.
Mora will screen her first documentary, "BIRTH" on Thursday, at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University, 274 Moody St., Studio C.
During the 30-minute film women who, like Mora, gave birth with drugs and medical intervention, and then gave birth naturally, share their experiences.
"My approach is that women who have had the experience are sharing he experience," Mora said. "They are the narrators of the film."
After the screening, a panel discussion will take place involving some of the film's participants.
Mora she hopes the documentary will replace women's fears about natural childbirth with education. Many women are concerned about the pain, but Mora said during her natural childbirth she actually experience less discomfort than when she gave birth first son.
Mora said this won't be her only foray into filmmaking on the subject.
"I'm planning to make a full-length film," Mora said.
Richard Conn can be contacted at 781-398-8004 or rconn@cnc.com.
