Birth story

Beckam the moment after birth 2011

I just got home from watching Birth Story at the library.
It is a documentary about Ina May Gaskin.
She is a pioneer of midwifery.
She has been a witness to natural birth for 40 years.

Now the whole world is quiet.  It is distilled into one fact. 

I have done that. 

Three times, I have done that.  I know it is real.


I know what it feels like to hold a new life up under my chin the second it hits the air.  I know the full body shudder and release from pain which follows the second a baby is born.  I know Andrew's forehead pressed into mine as I get ready to push.  He centers me one more time, and then I go into my center and groan out a sound I never make at any other time.   I surrender my whole body.  It's the only way to finish. 
It's hard to write about because I go to a place with no words.  But I want to write about it because I am afraid I'll forget.

I invited a newly-pregnant woman to the screening.  Last week I asked her if she'd like to learn about natural birth.
She gave me a blank look. 
In the last 3 days I've shown her 2 documentaries:  Birth Story and The Business of Being Born.
She is not blank anymore.

As I drove my mini-van through downtown city lights, the phone up to my ear, I was smiling, and crying.  Not really crying,  just the small tears that come when I hear truth echoed back to me.  I was listening to that same girl bursting with words.  She wants it.  Not everyone wants it, but she does, and I did.  I wanted it, bad.


Look at me.  Hooked up to nothing.  3 minutes post birth

My mom told me,
"If you have your baby naturally, without drugs, you experience all of it.  It's harder than anything you'll ever do.  And once you do it, it becomes a source of strength that no one can ever take away from you."
My Mom has birthed 7 babies this way.
My aunt Lucy has birthed 10.
This is the legacy of birth in my family.
It is rare.

So now I am the one to tell pregnant women, what was said to me.
If no one had ever told me, I would have missed the depth of my own capacity...of what birth had to teach me.
I didn't have eyes to see it.

I have stumbled into the role of doula.
I don't have to sell anything.
I just tell women about what birth can be.
And they say:  I want to do that.  Will you come with me?  Will you help me?
What can I do but say:  Of course.  Of course I'll be there.
It's the only way I don't forget what it is.
Because a spiritual experience will never stay fresh in my pocket.



The moment of staring and staring and staring...

Pepper and that crazy tongue right after birth 2009

 

 

Andrew Beckam and I at the birth center 2011