when i gave birth - part one
I wouldn’t say that I am not a responsible person, but when I got pregnant I didn’t worry about “the todo list”, trusting that everything would come naturally, as it had come up to then.
That pregnancy was the threshold of parenthood, the line you cross, titled: “Time to become an adult, oh yes!”; subtitled: “Get your bureaucracy together and be fast.” … to which there is no guideline, believe me.
Yet, I thought professional figures could help me, sort things out for me, explain to my brain the things it already knew, if only I had listened to me and asked myself wise and appropriate questions. I don’t want to be gotten wrong: I loved my Doula, and I respected all the midwives I met, and I believed and followed all they said.
The birth of our daughter was planned to happen at a birth house, in the red room, in the bath tub, with candles around… but our daughter “was late”, which brought our family to sit-ins at hospitals with sterile doctors, who were only able to mechanically do the job - no comfortable talks attached - of induction.
Induction means an overdose of oxytocin, that causes your uterus to start contracting, but not as labour would do … as if a techno rave party just started. To give a healthy example: my labour went on for 3 days, before delivery. One Sunday night a contraction, went to sleep, another 2 during the night, 3, 4, 5 on Monday, 6 or 10 during the whole Tuesday, and on Wednesday they became stronger, nearer, until 1.30AM on Thursday - when the real labour started, which lasted 4 hours.
Real labour means 1 contraction every 3-5 minutes or so, which lasts 1 minute or more. When this happens you are about to give birth. When this happens, the doctors ask you to stop everything you are doing, get in the car and reach them.
Birth it’s a slow process, and an eternal bonding for the human race, we cannot escape its rhythm. The procedure is this long, because no-one wants to exit natural connection and comfort, neither the mom wants to bring to the light, through suffering.
When the process starts, and we panic and we think we need help, or we are told and taught that we need so, we move towards academics who maybe aren’t even mothers, who probably didn’t give birth, and we rely on them to bring our child to light. That is the first misconception: we cannot believe that Nature will fail us. Mostly, if we had a healthy pregnancy.
I had a healthy pregnancy, I could talk to my baby and she would respond, according to my gynecologist’s calculation we were together since 43 weeks, when she dismissed me telling me that if I didn’t want the induction I was not making the right choice. The doctors at the hospital kept saying that I’d maybe have given birth to a dead child - can you imagine? This is not only untrue, but should also be illegal. I kept on showing them that the amniotic fluid was enough, that the placenta was getting old, and that that meant I was near to giving birth.
Their fear didn’t prevent me from protecting my process: what it did, was organizing in such a way in which I wouldn’t need them. I trusted myself - I wasn’t brave, I was able to read the situation and act accordingly. And I believe in my capacities as a mother: I wouldn’t gift my creative process to anyone.