Humiliation

Fat tears dropped onto her belly, rolling down over the enormous bump and onto the floor. Some drops stayed, pooling there above her ribs. I stared at them. The midwife stared at them. Mother-to-be squeezed her eyes shut and wept, her taut belly bouncing with every sob.

We expect that during some births. Mom cries. She wails, even. She might even shriek. Or scream. Often she just weeps quietly, gently, like a tired kitten mewing for its mother. I remember a sweet, young Amish woman named Esther whimpering pitifully. It’s all part of it.

It.

The “it” I mean, in childbirth, is *humiliation*. As odd as it might sound to some, “it” is the part I love the most about birth — this bittersweetness taking hold of me somewhere deep inside as I watch it, even sometimes shepherd it — or shepherd the mom, really, as she surrenders to it. Man, it’s beautiful.

Most of us would aspire to be humble. But humility comes from a place we *don’t* usually like so well: humiliation. A simple-but-deep concept, humility includes the renunciation of one’s self, the surrender to something bigger and greater than us, to something more powerful. And if childbirth is anything, childbirth is big

and great

and powerful.

You see, once you’re pregnant, the baby *has* to come out; there is no way around it. And even with the most gentle, lovely, natural births, there’s still just a certain sheer and raw power, an all-consuming wrenching and heaving that requires — here’s the key to it all — surrender.

But if you look at childbirth practices in our allegedly “developed” nation, you won’t see surrender. What you’ll see is countless women trying to *avoid* it or control it. They sense the naked power of birthing, and it scares them. They think they won’t be able to handle it. It’s too scary. It’s too gross. And they are, frankly, far too self-absorbed to consider the idea of enduring pain for the sake of something greater. (And, jeesh, I love working with the Amish. They’re not like that and have amazing outcomes to show for it.) But today’s typical woman: Natural childbirth? You mean feel it? No way. Why would I want to do that? After all, I am a modern woman. I am so special, so important I should never, ever have to suffer that way. Why, if I can have a catheter inserted into my spine and drugs pumped in that numb me from the ribs down, should I have to endure the hardship of childbirth?

Oy.

I would like to — and often do — answer that very question, but for many women it’s just a rhetorical question anyway. (They’re not really asking, though the answer is quite logical and settles in as truth when one is really seeking it.) So I’ll save that answer for another day. Suffice to say for now: If you only knew what you were missing, what you were trading for a few hours of pain relief. It’s big. Big big.

So back to weeping mom.

There’s usually a turning point or two during labor where a woman senses she has nowhere to go except *through* — and she gets scared.

“But it hurts,” she says. “Yes,” we say, “it hurts.”

“But I can’t do it,” she says. “We know it feels like that,” we say, “but you *are* doing it. You can do it.”

And then we sit, quietly mostly, and watch her surrender and allow it. And then, usually not terribly long later, she’s cooing over her baby a truly transformed woman. (Aside: Let me just tell you how completely addictive this is to watch.)

But surrender, oddly enough, requires a certain resolve. It is that willingness to set aside one’s self, one’s comfort, to “count the costs,” if you will, for the benefits that come later with it. Often that willingness comes with age — or, better, life experience. And it’s a necessary trait for good parenting, for what is parenting but self-sacrifice?

Once in a while, though, that resolve is just not there.

And I’m grappling with that, with my role in helping a woman when that resolve is just not there (or there yet). I already know I'm not the doula for the get-me-my-epidural-at-4cm woman. There is a doula for her -- love that doula -- but I am not she.

I'm still thinking.