Every mother knows that her birth story continually evolves as time passes. I wrote down both of my children’s birth stories from my perspective right after they were born and keep rewriting them in my mind & heart.

Growing up I remember hearing the Christmas story about Jesus’ birth. My favorite verse was always about Mary right after she became a mom: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Even if she didn’t have shepherds and wise men visiting her with all kinds of fancy gifts and didn’t have a son who wouldn’t go on to be the most famous human being in the world besides Michael Jackson, her birth would have been the most important moment in her life.

Going from woman to mother is indescribable and fluid. I become more of a mother everyday.  My first acts of mothering took place as soon as I peed on the stick and saw the words “pregnant” (digital pregnancy test). Maybe even before.

Birth is incredibly sacred. It’s been moved from fields and bedrooms to hospitals in many cases, but it remains primal, mysterious, rebellious. It can’t even be predicted. Maya, my eldest, was born 10 days after her due date. Tali was born 10 days after as well.

It’s no wonder that the state of birth rights are in crisis. Our culture isn’t patient (I know I’m not). We’re not farmers who grow our own food and have learned to watch and obey the Earth and respect Mother Nature’s cycles. When the sun goes down and asks us to sleep, we can just flip on the light. We can have strawberries in the winter. We think we’re in charge and enjoy the illusion of control over the elements.

I deeply believe that birth is our last remaining link to the natural world.

Women’s bodies are ecosystems that hold the secrets of creation. Medical authorities can try to tell us that we don’t know how to give birth. That it is in our best interest to schedule dates to get cut open, or that we should be afraid for our lives and babies’ lives and hand over all control to a corporate third party. Religions can shape our minds and tell us that pain is our birthright and our punishment and that being born with a uterus and vagina makes us inferior, shameful creatures that need to be controlled and dominated.

Our culture has even been powerful enough to convince women to objectify themselves to the point of fearing rather than embracing how pregnancy forever change one’s body. Lower back tattoos are sexy, the beautiful lightning bolt marks a child leaves on your abdomen from creating a tent out of a sundress are not. Breasts filled with silicone are coveted, breasts filled with milk are covered up as women scurry off to feed their children while standing up in restroom stalls.

Thankfully times are changing as women ask questions rather than just nod their heads. We’re listening to older women and learning to trust in and understand the language of our bodies. The good little girls are transforming into something far more wild (and I like it!).

Every woman with more than one child knows that each birth births a new you and delivers a lesson. With Maya’s birth, I learned that when I give into fear, I hand away my power. She could have been a homebirth but I was afraid and went to the hospital for comfort. My labor was fast, and “easy’ but I’ll never forget how I felt like a trapped and without choices. What could have been a sacred moment, the moment my first child would enter the world, felt cold. There were strangers in the room. It was a teaching hospital. Our agendas were not aligned and I felt the discrepancy like ice against my skin and went on a very tangible mental vacation for about three days. Sometimes I still get angry.

I’ve heard many people say that it doesn’t matter how a baby comes into the world as long as they do so successfully. It matters to me.

Tali’s birth taught me about trust. People thought I was crazy for wanting to give birth alone after a few dreams that she wanted to be born that way but I did it anyway. In the moment of her birth there was no one in the room but I felt surrounded by the Divine presence, a whole cast of angel midwives, and all of my ancestors.

Now I feel as if another birth is happening, this time no baby, just me. I enrolled in doula school and will be starting over the next few weeks. My whole life I’ve been branding myself as a business professional but the contractions have started and every women knows that contractions are painful to the degree that they are resisted. My whole being is being pushed through a birth canal, squeezing me, sometimes I can’t even breathe. I know why babies often cry when they finally come out and feel air for the first time. They’re not (always) sad, it’s just a lot of work to be born. Tears of relief perhaps. An exclamation point. Maybe if they could speak they’d say “Fuck that was crazy!”. I would.

I really, truly look forward to serving the women I work with as a doula. I’ll keep running my business because my kids drink milk like it’s water, but I definitely feel a new me on the horizon.

Tweet This Post

This entry was posted on Monday, December 20th, 2010 at 10:20 am and is filed under Mothering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.