Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a ‘women’s circle’
as part of an indigenous awareness program.
Our circle of women included an aboriginal elder, midwives, academics
and my group of student midwives. As we
brushed ourselves with eucalyptus leaves, removed our shoes and stood in a
circle clasping hands, I felt an overwhelming surge of emotion - of sisterhood,
of motherhood and of womanhood.
Once I started crying, it became difficult to choke the
emotion that had been released as a flood of tears. So instead of fighting it, I allowed myself
to ‘feel’ my experiences of the last 8 months and to remember them. To be honest, it was a healing experience for
me. So, in the spirit of a new beginning I thought
I’d share a few things I have learnt as a student midwife:
“There is
secret in our culture, and it’s not that childbirth is painful, it’s that women
are strong”
I don’t think I will ever forget the experience of my first
birth. Everything was so new - it was
hard to process it all.
I remember there was a woman on the bed, giving birth.
It must have been sensory overload because I didn’t feel a
thing, no emotions.
My background in surgical nursing had exposed me to many
things, but not THIS. Namely, a baby’s
head was coming out of THIS woman’s vagina!!! As the head crowned, the baby did a little head turn (restitution) and
then all of a sudden a child was born.
Starting out, I believed that women can give birth - that
our bodies are designed for it. In my naivety
I assumed that all women felt the same. It was eye opening for me to come to
understand the anxiety and sometimes fear that many women carry. However, the real education has come in
being with these same women in labour and coming to know that they are, in fact
– strong.
-
One woman worked so hard to push her baby out
after experiencing the loss of her first child at 6 weeks
-
One woman decided to carry her baby to term and
birth him, despite knowing that the likelihood of his survival outside her womb
was very slim
-
One woman birthed her baby alone on the couch in
her home as her husband packed the car, ready to drive her to hospital
-
One woman waited days in hospital for an
induction – and then gave birth within 50 mins
-
One woman, after enduring IVF treatment for
years – had a failed induction and an emergency caesarean section
And the list goes on…
What is clear from this list is another truth that I have
learnt along the way: the most predictable thing about childbirth is its unpredictability. Although childbirth is a universal
experience, it is also one of the most unique.
No one birth is the same. Coming
from a nursing background where everything is black and white – this required a
change in my thinking.
In Ursula K LeGuin’s science ficton novel The Left Hand of Darkness, Genry comes
to a world in which some can tell the future.
He asks Faxe, one of those who can, why he does not use this gift more
often:
“The
unknown,” said Faxe’s soft voice in the forest, “the unforetold, the unproven, that
is what life is based on. Ignorance is
the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground
of action. Tell me, Genry, what is
known? What is sure, predictable,
inevitable, the one certain thing you know concerning your future and mine?”
“That we shall die.”
“Yes. There’s really only one question that can be
answered, Genry, and we already know the answer...The only thing that makes
life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes
next”
Another thing I have learnt is that the birth experience is
special and watching it unfold is an experience like no other. After my first experience of birth, I
gradually started to see things as a whole.
I cried and I hugged the women’s
husbands J I
felt angry when some women suffered. I took
photos and then left the couple to experience their first moments as parents
together.
Whenever I watch shows like ‘One born every minute’ (the American version) - I cringe. The women sit there in bed strapped
to a machine, while their husbands eat chips and play on their iphones. The nurse enters the room chewing some gum
and checks the clock.
Where is the
celebration of birth as a rite of passage?
There are so very few things in life that remain unknown –
for example: we don’t actually know how
labour starts. I like that.
Bridgitte Jordan said:
“…if we consider the sparse ethnographic record, we find
that there is no known society where birth is treated, by the people involved,
as a merely physiological function. On the
contrary, it is everywhere socially marked and shaped”
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| Five years ago... when I became an Aunty for the second time :) |
