I am deep in laboring with my son, and I ask between contractions, “Who invented this whole ‘laboring thing?’”
One of my more cynical friends in the room answers, “It had to be a man.”
One of my very wise friends says that of course God is feminine and invented childbirth: how else would we know that we have what it takes to raise a child? After labor and delivery, we know we can do anything.
Each wave of cramping pain makes me moan deeply. I direct my moaning into mantra and deep, deep sound, down into my pelvis, inviting her to open for this child. “Aaaahhhhh.” I direct the healing sound into my pelvic floor. “Oooohhhhh.” I let the vibration open me. Thirty-three hours of contractions, thirty-three hours of moaning and rocking and sleeping in between.
I am terrified at times…how can I do this thing? As I labor, and my child is not yet ready to be pushed out, I am overwhelmed at times by the all-consuming nature of the pain and the anticipation of opening my body to an entire child. How will I be able to do what I know remains to be done? How is it that so many women I know have gone through this experience with so little fanfare?
I remember when I discovered I was pregnant: I remember thinking there is no way out but through. There is no escaping that this child will now need to come out of me, either the way he came in, or by major abdominal surgery. There is no escaping this immense reality of a human being living inside of me and developing relentlessly toward birth. I am aware of this during childbirth…from the moment I saw the first sign of blood that indicated the imminence of labor, I felt a pang of terror in my excitement: now is the time to pass through the eye of the needle. This little camel will pass through the eye of me…how will I fair? Will I be torn? And will he be okay? Will he pass through the gauntlet of his first great adventure unharmed?
The dark night of the soul comes for me after 21 hours of labor. At two o’clock in the afternoon, 16 hours in, my midwife had told me I was dilated to four centimeters. My water had just broken, and the contractions became more intense, more frequent. For five and a half hours more, I labored on, wave after wave of pain, wave after wave of opening and relaxing into the pain. She checks me at seven thirty in the evening, 21 hours into the process, and cheerfully informs me that I am now at five centimeters.
I feel my face go slack and my eyes dim. I say, “You have got to be kidding.” She informs me, in all sincerity that “the first five centimeters are the hardest” and I’m “more than half way there.” My inner cynic is not happy, and she is saying, “Yeah, right. I don’t know how you figure that five is more than half of ten, but I’m not buying it…”
I labor on for another hour, and I do battle with desire to escape. I can’t go through with it, I decide. I cannot labor on and on with no end in sight and still have to push this baby out…for an hour, the contractions feel sharper, and I labor literally and figuratively in darkness. I have had back labor this entire day, requiring someone to apply hard pressure to my sacrum for each contraction in order for me to tolerate the pain. My birthing partner sits with me in the darkened room, pressing my back during each contraction, while I silently, internally search for an escape from this process. If only I were in the hospital, instead of doing home birth. I could get an epidural and be free from my suffering. But no, my baby is breech. If I were in the hospital, they would do a Caesarian section. That would be okay, I think in this moment, though until labor started I’d have been horrified at the thought. So what’s a longer recovery period, I think, or missing out on the “joys” of natural childbirth? I’ve had enough of the joys, and I want out. But I realize that if I really want a Caesarian, I’ll have to be transported to the hospital, and I’m so tired right now. I can’t imagine getting myself up and to the hospital. The thought of having contractions—and back labor—in the car is more misery than I think I can stand. So I continue my silent bargaining. I know in this dark place that I don’t have the resources within myself to bring this child out…and yet I must.
