Is control where it’s at?
When I was pregnant, it seemed to me that there was one irrefutable truth: my body, not my mind, knew how to develop this baby and it knew how it was going to get it out. No manner of intellectualizing was going to change how my body would labour and birth my baby. It was totally out of my hands.
I took comfort that ancient knowledge passed down to me through my DNA, as described by Dr. Christiane Northrup, would do for me the unimaginable: transition my baby from the inside to the outside world. I named fear the big problem for most women approaching the threshold of motherhood — fear that they will be incompetent to cope with labour without outside help; fear that labour will be intolerable; fear that they will be overwhelmed and have to rely on medical care. I knew enough about the debilitating effects of fear to know that I wanted no part of it in my labour. I was going to believe that my body, which got me into this situation, was going to get me out too.
Mommy Blogger Rebecca Eckler has written on Chatelaine’s website about choice and control (Read entry at Chatelaine.com). She says she’s angered by men who pipe in about the importance of vaginal delivery — having no direct knowledge or possibility of experiencing it. She wanted the control of knowing when the baby would come so her fiance and family could be there, her work could be wrapped up etc.. She made the increasingly common choice to have an elective c-section with full knowledge of the health risks.
She would have us shush about her decision — her choice — and not judge her desire for control. After all, lots of people are doing it and her reasons are entirely personal. No one can argue that. But judging for the purpose of understanding the messages sent by our actions is critical to becoming conscious mothers.
My decision to have both children at home with the care of an experienced, talented midwife was about the opposite of control and choice. I was beginning to learn that part of mothering was about letting go. I had to stop thinking my way through everything and listen with my whole body. I saw that I would also have to learn to listen and surrender to the needs of a very small person to meet her ancient basic human needs.
In my mind, the first need was for her to begin the labour which would birth her. Only she could know when she was needing to be born: emotionally, spiritually, and physically. My job was to have all the contingencies available to deal with whatever happened after labour began and to prepare myself not to get in the way. I never entertained the fear, which is not to say I never cried-out in pain, I just chose to see it as temporaray and if nothing else, as progress. I could be into progress without needing to be in control.
That was the first of many days that I tried to make it clear to my daughter that we’re in this together: I’m listening and open to responding to your needs. I’m proud of that choice for the message it sent. It was not about control, however familiar and comfortable that might have been for me. As I become the mother I’m meant to be I know there will be many judges along the way — and my kids will be the Supreme Court.