After all, one of the most referenced births happened in a manger under the watchful eyes of animals and the wide-open starry night-sky. Why was it then one of the toughest of challenges to trust my own womanhood, to call upon the energy of millions of women before and beyond me who birthed, and birth still, as nature intended? Why was it such a challenge to be my own damn hero?
I suppose the difficulty arose due to the ever-pervasive idea that we don’t need to be heroes. Let the doctors and pharmacists be valiant. The truth is we very much need to be heroes. Heroes for ourselves, heroes for our sisters and heroes for our daughters. We need to fight to own once again that rite which is ours—that rite which has been reduced to diagnoses and cures. As I walked through those 16 hours of labor with our daughter, I felt the most powerful I have ever felt in my whole entire life. There I was birthing a girl child into a man’s world with nothing less than profound strength and undying courage. The recognition that this was the first of lesson I would teach my child gave me faith that we would be well and emerge victorious. In those hours wherein we navigated this most Divine of transitions, we were brave, we were mighty and we were undeniably the heroic stuff of legends. There was no hospital run by insurance, there were no doctors governed by timetables, there were no nurses rotating shifts; there was my child, myself, my mate and the women dedicated to assisting me in doing what my body intrinsically knew how to do. This is the way by which our daughter entered the world.
As a woman who believes herself to be a faithful supportive sister to all women, I do not condemn those who choose a different course. I recognize that many women must embrace remedies offered through modern medicine for the very real safety of themselves and their unborn child. However the barbaric “yelp” I sound here, in the writing of this piece, exalts the sapient act of natural birthing in a world wherein it is fast becoming a thing of the past. For my sisters who one day will become mothers, I hope that when you look out over the horizon of your birthing options that you see us cowgirls. We ride our ponies across the range of possibility, a group of lone rangers, keepers of that which is sacred and ours. Though you may not see our faces in the media, we roam on wild horses rare and beautiful. Though you may not here our call amidst the cacophony of modern America, we still howl at the moon.
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