What Gets Taken

I am mourning my childbirth experiences. A strange aftermath of celebrating the birth of my baby granddaughter born two weeks ago. My baby granddaughter born at home in a birthing tub, caught by her daddy and given right away to her mama, my daughter, Erin. Andy, her father, then took a picture of this infant, minutes old, gazing wide eyed at her mama. I wasn’t at this powerful birth, but the story of it makes me feel like a thousand stars are shining inside of me, like the universe unfolded exactly how it should have in the birth of Audrey.

During the process of my daughter preparing to have her baby at home, we talked about at home childbirth and hospital, doctor oriented childbirth. We talked about the stories they (the birthing doctors and books, hospitals, birthing class teachers) tell, and told me, and the stories my daughter was hearing from her midwife. Synchronicity being at work in the universe during this time, at the University where I work, a graduate student was getting ready to present her paper on midwife assisted childbirth. So it seemed, everywhere I turned there was some history for me to learn about how doctors (mostly, if not exclusively male) replaced midwives (females) and how births for women became more dangerous, and how infant mortality rates climbed. The United States still has an incredibly high infant mortality rate.

Sometimes I don’t want to be the feminist shouting persecution. I don’t want to have to be a prophet, especially of doom, and believe me sister, I want to be done mourning my losses. But I can’t not notice what gets taken.

When I was pregnant the first time in 1981 (my first daughter was born in January of 1982), I was all of 22 years old and thought I was living in modern times. My best friend Mary, (the one I got expelled from school with in the 7th grade) had moved to Seattle, and had already had two at home births by then. She sent me pictures of herself, the babies, and the midwives after the births and I was amazed at how good, how glowing they all looked. I could see the magic. I know now, what I was seeing was the amazing chemicals our bodies produce to help us give birth, I was seeing the power of childbirth reflected in the eyes of the midwives. I was seeing what it looks like when women do not let what belongs to them get stolen.

I didn’t even imagine having my baby at home, well, OK, I imagined it. I was told however, that here in modern Minneapolis, the births were not at all like they used to be and that it would be like having a ‘natural’ childbirth, under my control, but in the safety of a hospital, should anything go wrong. In my childbirth class I was told about all the horrible things that used to happen to women during childbirth. I was given a litany of all the drugs I could take or decide not to take. I was never, ever told that my own body could produce all the chemicals I would need to safely deliver my baby.

This I only learned in the past nine months. And, what I’ve told myself, is, that after three violent and difficult births I am supposed to feel like I am lucky, my births were vaginal, and my babies were fine. It took me months and months of healing after each delivery; and only now- thirty years later- to understand the trauma my body and psyche endured during all three of my childbirth experiences. All with stirrups, all with male doctors, all with cutting and the doctors telling me that my babies were in ‘distress.’ During labor with my first baby, the nurse yelled at me when I started to cry, and then my doctor took her out into the hall and yelled at her for yelling at me. Mostly, they were not self-assured professionals and I did not feel safe and cared for. I felt scared.

My babies are fine, grown up beautiful women now. I am a bit sad lately, mourning, as I said, for the power of my birthing experiences that was taken from me. It was only after I got home from the hospital, each time, safely with my babies, learning how to nurse them on my own, that the stars appeared inside for me. When the chemicals that bond and soothe were released through my tattered body, exquisite baby at my breast.

The past sometimes needs to be undone, and we need to recognize what’s been taken, forgive somehow, and let it go. I also though, want to take back and pass on, I want to take back sacred childbirth, I want to pass on to women that our bodies are strong, and powerful, and able to give birth. I want to pass on that sometimes life is imperfect, and we might need medical help, but mostly still, our bodies know what to do, and they know what we need. Our bodies are ourselves, full of chemicals, and mystery and power, and host to a galaxy of stars.