vol. 2 issue 26
Greetings,
The day my son was born, the doula we had hired to help us with what we intended to be an entirely natural childbirth, grabbed my hand while I was in between contractions, and with bright eyes asked, “Are you ready?”
Because I was just on the precipice of the transition portion of the child birth process — the one where the uterus starts to force the baby out and the mom-to-be panics because no one told her a tractor would be driving slowly through her body causing her to think dying would be less painful and maybe even preferable — I could still speak.
What I said to her was this: “Well, it’s not like I can back out now.”
Good thing, because not more than an hour later, when I was sure I would die from the pain, I also was present enough to realize that the only way out was through. And so, I began with my focused breathing, tuned in to my own rhythm, and got on with what needed to be done: the actual birthing of a human being. I was new at it, I didn’t have a…
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