Thinking About Birth

A recent candid shot of me, two very wise women who share their birth stories with me and support me in my pregnancies, and one little lady who taught me everything I needed to know about birth when she squirmed her way into my life

I'm reading Birthing From Within, a very touchy-feely spiritually-focused workbook about birth.  I like it, because I think that birth should be way more touchy-feely and spiritual than it is fore most women these days, but I think that Hub will laugh at it if he ever gets his hands on it.  No matter.  He doesn't have to give birth, so his opinion on the silliness of birth-based art projects is moot.

I just finished a lovely chapter about the importance of connecting with other women when you are preparing to become a mother yourself.  The author talks about a moment of profound recognition and connection during her labor,

" I felt a oneness with all mothers who had ever given birth, and to mothers all over the world who were laboring and giving birth with me that night.  For a fleeting moment, I saw all of us reaching deep inside for strength to break through the mental and physical limitations which we, as maidens, had assumed to exist. "

I felt that, too.  As soon as I had given birth, I felt initiated, connected to a strong and unbroken web of women that encompasses the earth at this moment and stretches back in time beyond memory, living and recorded, before humanity itself.  For me, birth was a rite of passage, an awe-inspiring achievement.  It was life-changing.  I can only assume that not every woman feels this spiritual connection to her birth, but because I did, I relish connection with other mothers and always want to reach out to women who are approaching motherhood themselves. This chapter on connecting with women seemed written just for me.

"The medicalization of birth has left three generations of women spiritually and psychologically wounded.  But no matter what her experience in birth was, every mother knows something other people don't know.  However, she may not know it.  Or she may not realize that her deepest understanding is what you are really interested in.  If you want more than a medical report, you have to ask the right questions!"

Coincidentally, it is my homework for the week to fill out my birth center's birth plan worksheet.  What better way to start than with this list of questions?  It will get to the deep stuff fast.  I can't necessarily decide whether or not I get a natural birth, because a c-section might be completely necessary, but I can think hard about what mattered to me in my birth with Elsie, what I'm looking forward to feeling again, and what I hope goes differently.

I encourage other expectant moms out there to talk to the mothers in your life from many generations and to ask them some of these questions.  It is entirely true that just asking for birth stories is will get you an ever-worsening barrage of "big-fish" stories about pain and medical intervention, but though there is pain in childbirth (almost always) and there is very often medical intervention for all living generations of mothers, there is often more to it -- the deep stuff.  The stuff that is challenging to put into words.  Stuff that makes us feel silly to talk about.  The stuff that you, who have never been through it, actually really want to hear.

Here goes:

What helped you most when you gave birth?

• Laboring at home was wonderful.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I turned down the lights and cranked up the "spa" station on my satellite radio (read, new-age yoga-type music) and just immersed myself in it without worrying if it was high-brow enough.  One shouldn't think in labor, only feel, so listen to whatever helps you not think.  I felt so comfortable at home emotionally that it was easier to stay comfortable physically.
• Feeling 100% supported by my husband helped a lot.  Feeling that we were on the same page and that I could tell him, straight-up, in gruff tones what I needed and he would not take it personally because it was not about him.  He was so great about getting out of my way when I needed it, but being there as a positive force for me at my back or in the peripheries.
• Leaning on the counter and swaying my hips like a dance got me through many contractions.  Definitely my best position!
• Hypnosis for childbirth helped unwind my anxiety surrounding birth, and when I played the 10 minute cd at the hospital, it definitely took everything waaaay down and made my contractions easier. 
• The tub was EXCELLENT.  I only wish they hadn't kept telling me that I wasn't allowed to have it hot enough and that I had to keep it shallow.  I kept topping it up with hot water when they left. 
• Antinausea medication definitely helped when I needed it.
• When I was exhausted, the epidural allowed me rest, and rest revived me a great deal. 
• My second nurse was really great.  She was extremely brusque, and that worked very well for me.  She was also extremely efficient and I could tell that she was using what tools she had to help that baby move down.  Trust helped.

What was your spiritual experience of giving birth? 

• Birth was a deeply yogic experience for me, especially when I was laboring at home.  In the practice of yoga, a challenging pose or a challenging situation requires equal parts submission to the difficulty and power to fight through it.  That is what labor is all about: giving into the sheer helplessness and suffering of a contraction while simultaneously finding your inner strength and grace to harness that power and rise above it.  Each contraction is hard physical work, but it is also deeply challenging emotional and spiritual work.  The spiritual work is by far the hardest part.
• Much of the yoga of my labor was eaten away at by exhaustion and distractions (read: fear of hospital environment, shaking, vomiting), but the real end to the yoga was being in a medical setting.  The hospital itself diminished my personal comfort and therefore my ability to dig deep and get myself through the difficulty.  Accepting medical interventions helped in some important ways (suppressing distractions, allowing for rest), but the epidural doesn't just erase the pain and hard physical work, it also quiets the spiritual experience.  I still think it was a good choice for the situation I was in, but it turned off the primal, inspirational, mystical side of my labor.  For some women, that's not a great loss, and they should definitely get the epidural!  But it matters to me.
• Giving birth itself, pushing that baby out, was an ecstatic experience.  I thought it would totally freak me out to see my vagina stretched to 10 cm, but it did not.  I watched that purple raisin head crown in the mirror and I could not have been more excited to see it come.  There was nothing to feel but joy and amazement.  I can remember it vividly, and I still tear up every time. 

If  you could do it over again, what would you do the same?  

• Everything about laboring at home was wonderful.  I would really love to have a home-birth.
• I will listen to the new-age music and I will lean on that counter and I will swing my hips and I will get in the tub and make it nice and deep and hot and I will channel my yoga practice as long as I possibly can.
• I want anti-nausea meds on hand.  I felt that stopping my incessant vomiting did not reduce any of my spiritual experience.  Even experienced yogis use props!
• I want to watch my baby crown again.  I want a mirror.

Is there anything you would do differently?

• Labor shorter.  Much shorter.  Ha!  If only I got to choose that.
• I hope to stay out of the hospital and well within my comfort zone.  I know that safety sometimes trumps emotional comfort, and I can accept that, but this time, hospital is for emergencies or high-risk situations only, not for routine labor.
• I want to do the whole thing without an epidural.  I want to experience this amazing process in its entirety. 

What do you wish you had known beforehand?

•  That it was going to turn out beautifully.