Voyage Underway

How do you begin a journey that started on its own? Really I'm not just starting out, but joining a movement already in progress.



For those who don't know (and if you've talked with me for more than ten minutes, you do) I am passionate about pregnancy,childbirth and the crucible of becoming a mother. I am equally passionate about infancy and facilitating the optimal growth environment for fledgling humans. For me, these two passions are intertwined-a tortured pregnancy and/or traumatic birth can (and will) have an impact on those first crucial months of a life, a time already fraught with peril, turmoil, and poop.



In my estimation, the best possible scenario for birth and life is to sail through with as little disruption as possible. In the matter of childbirth, "disruption" can be anything that detracts from the natural process of a woman's body-a body designed to handle all the much and guck just the way it should. So how do we as women approach this issue? Many of us don't--too many allow themselves to be shuffled in and out of examining rooms like products being checked for flaws, then slapped with an "inspected by Fred" sticker and ushered out the door.



I didn't want to be one of those women. I didn't want to find myself terrified and confused, being wheeled to a cold sterile ER for a surgery that might not be needed if my baby didn't come out the way a doc had been taught it would-I wanted to be in control, to feel what my body was doing so that I knew what needed to be done, and when. I wanted to listen to my labor, to follow its cues and deliver my baby in the safest way possible.



My first was in a hospital, fast and "easy" (if you discount the tremendous pain). "Easy" because everything happened as it should, without any meddling. I wouldn't call that easy, I would call it normal. The second time around, after a score of eye-opening experiences, I went in search of other ways. Childbirth is called the most natural thing in the world, until you take it and strap in to a table, to machines, to medications and chemicals, making it decidely UN-natural. In my quest for a NATURAL natural birth, I encountered a remarkable birth center full of remarkable mid-wives who did the most remarkable things-they welcomed me warmly, made me feel at home, and treated me like a normal person. A normal person getting ready to expel another equally normal person. They talked with me, laughed with me, hugged me and cared for me as if I belonged to them-and made the process beautiful. They made me beuatiful. No longer a clunky chunky "patient" with a cup full of pee. I was in charge there and my word was law (well, not completely, the law was law first, my word second-they do have regulations to follow), which became a moot point as I never had to fight for anything.



After a long frustrating labor my daughter was born into love, gently and naturally. Born into a room full of people we knew and trusted, who were there to support and encourage, not pass judgmenets, lay edicts, make impossible timetables no human body will pay the least attention to. She came from my body into warm water, and together with one of my midwives we brought her through the surface into air and life. As she lay on my chest, squalling and blowing raspberried, I thought that nothing could be more extraordinary.

Plus I felt AWESOME. Not just physically well. AWESOME. In that moment I knew without a doubt that I had that I could climb Mt Everest without a backwards glance, and then-just for good measure-rocket myself into space. Power. Strength. And incredible love. Awesome.

I knew then what I had always known, but in a different way-I needed to help other women feel this. Do this. Throw off the shackles of modern medicine, and birth the way THEY wanted to. And thus the journey, already in progress, began.