Well, it was amazing.
Last night I attended, for the first time as an adult, a birth that did not involve me pushing out a baby. I volunteered as a doula, or labour-supporter, for a young couple having their first baby. Herein, a few general observations about the birth experience, all of which threaten to sound terribly cheesy, the way all big life-changing transitional events do when translated into words. But here goes ...
The most ordinary space can be transformed into a holy, sacred place.
A woman's body is an extraordinarily powerful entity, and in birth it just really knows what to do. Travelling emotionally and mentally into that place where you can allow the body to do what it needs to do can be really frightening; at the very least, there's some resistance to letting go like that. I remember feeling that in my own births. That sensation of oh no, no, I really am not prepared to go there, do I have to go there? "There" is an extremely focussed, interior, almost animal place inside the body and mind. "There" will get you through just about anything, I think.
We really earn these babies.
How profoundly my experience of the spiritual is linked to my body, to physical reality.
Birth is this crazy intense moment in a life--the moment of parents becoming parents, of a new human life entering the world, of vulnerability, and of strength, which is parenting distilled--and which could kind of define love, really. How vulnerable it feels to love somebody the way I love my children; and yet in no other role could I feel as strong, if I'm called to be, for their sakes.
Let's see, what else. Yes, I cried a bit at the end. I also laughed, and found myself feeling weepy at moments during the labour, overwhelmed by the amazingness of the body, by the strength this woman kept finding throughout, and by the connection to this individual yet collective human journey. It's ordinary, and it's extraordinary.
Will I do this again? During the labour, I couldn't imagine NOT doing it again (doula-ing, I mean; not giving birth myself). But I'm exhausted today, and know that choosing to do this more regularly--as a job on the side? or pursuing midwifery?--will mean choosing not to do other things instead. Reflection is in order.Labels: babies, Big Thoughts, doula, midwifery