My Daily Domestic Diigolet 05/01/2008

Being a mom seems to have changed the way the world sees me more than the other way around. Being pregnant really shifts your relationship to society, and then walking around with a baby shifts it again.

I love the feeling that I get from other parents — women in particular — of being a part of the club. Club Sacrifice, you might call it. It’s cool to have camaraderie, warmth, and openness with strangers. I wish that dynamic was more prevalent in general, but I am grateful to have it now.

I was in labor for 43 hours. Pushed for five hours. It was brutal and
scary and prolonged, and if I was in a hospital, they would have
definitely cut the baby out of me. I thank the goddesses that I was at
home with patient midwives who knew how to go the distance. The memory
of pain always recedes. The memory of triumph does not.

To take birthing out of women’s hands and deny us the continuum of
eons of wisdom and experience is to eject us from the very seat of our
power. I believe that women in hospitals are prevented from being able
to have normal, healthy birthing experiences because of the
intimidation of being on the clock, being pressured to take drugs to
make it quicker, being inhibited in their movement and activities, and
alienated by a sterile, fluorescent lit, feet-in-the-air type
environment.

You know the classic “performance anxiety” of not being able to pee
or poo because somebody’s watching you? Multiply that by a million! A
cervix is a sphincter after all!

Then to add tragic insult to injury women are numbed through their
great moment of revelation. I believe the act of giving birth to be the
single most miraculous thing a human being can do and it is surely the
moment when a lot of women finally understand the depth of their power
and connection to all of nature. You think it can’t possibly be done,
you think you can’t possibly take the pain, and then you do — and
afterward you look at yourself in a whole new way. If you can do that,
you can do anything.