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Labor as journey
Jan. 4th, 2008 11:02 pmI had an interesting therapy session with Wendy today. One of the things I love about working with her is how she gets involved with whatever is going on with me. Though there is the inevitable distance - she is a therapist, not a friend - she is a participant in the sessions. I didn't work nearly so well with my last therapist, who had a much more silent, distant approach. Since I've been pregnant, Wendy's been supportive of my journey around my birth decision and she helps me to remember that while every mother makes mistakes, what's important is that we're good enough - not perfect.
I was telling her a little about my last meeting with Lis and how I was thinking about how I can tap into my sense of spirituality and God during the birth. And how I see spirituality and birth intersecting, for me. In talking to her, I put something into words that I hadn't fully done before. (One of the best parts of therapy, in my opinion - when a piece of knowledge, only previously felt in a rather amorphous way, is given words and thus verbalized.)
Earlier in my pregnancy, when Mom was in town, she took me to a store in Noe Valley where they had several different painted icons of the Virgin Mary. She wanted me to pick the one that spoke to me so I could have it with me during labor and birth. Mary has been a very powerful figure in her own spiritual search and she wanted to share that with me. While Mary hasn't been as influential to me - I see her as a powerful mother figure and a connection to all of the mothers who have given birth before me. And, as Lis suggested, all of the women who will be giving birth at the same time as me. Wendy's suggestion too was that Mary would be a connection to Mom as birthing-mother and the lineage of women who have gone before her. (Including, of course, Grandma).
But more specifically to my own sense of spirituality, I talked about how I see both birth and death as these liminal spaces - these thresholds between this world and somewhere else. In the process of laboring to bring a child into the world and to leave this world, a person crosses into this space and emerges transformed. I see labor as my journey into this liminal space, where my child waits. Then I help bring him through this space and into our own. A bit like the archetypal journey into the underworld - and then the return. My hope is that I tap into my strength, and that I can hold onto that later in my journey as a mother. During the transformation of birth, I'm birthing a new life for the baby, and for myself as Mother.
I hadn't fully understood this vision until I was describing it to Wendy. And this vision is the main reason I want to have a homebirth. Here I feel I can hold onto that vision, make it real for me. That would be much more difficult in the hospital. And I'm not certain that the nurse-midwives would understand it as fully as I feel Lis will. Maybe that's because she initiated a discussion about spirituality and birth, and maybe that's not encouraged in a hospital setting... but whatever the reason, it's another piece of why I'm pleased with my decision.
I was telling her a little about my last meeting with Lis and how I was thinking about how I can tap into my sense of spirituality and God during the birth. And how I see spirituality and birth intersecting, for me. In talking to her, I put something into words that I hadn't fully done before. (One of the best parts of therapy, in my opinion - when a piece of knowledge, only previously felt in a rather amorphous way, is given words and thus verbalized.)
Earlier in my pregnancy, when Mom was in town, she took me to a store in Noe Valley where they had several different painted icons of the Virgin Mary. She wanted me to pick the one that spoke to me so I could have it with me during labor and birth. Mary has been a very powerful figure in her own spiritual search and she wanted to share that with me. While Mary hasn't been as influential to me - I see her as a powerful mother figure and a connection to all of the mothers who have given birth before me. And, as Lis suggested, all of the women who will be giving birth at the same time as me. Wendy's suggestion too was that Mary would be a connection to Mom as birthing-mother and the lineage of women who have gone before her. (Including, of course, Grandma).
But more specifically to my own sense of spirituality, I talked about how I see both birth and death as these liminal spaces - these thresholds between this world and somewhere else. In the process of laboring to bring a child into the world and to leave this world, a person crosses into this space and emerges transformed. I see labor as my journey into this liminal space, where my child waits. Then I help bring him through this space and into our own. A bit like the archetypal journey into the underworld - and then the return. My hope is that I tap into my strength, and that I can hold onto that later in my journey as a mother. During the transformation of birth, I'm birthing a new life for the baby, and for myself as Mother.
I hadn't fully understood this vision until I was describing it to Wendy. And this vision is the main reason I want to have a homebirth. Here I feel I can hold onto that vision, make it real for me. That would be much more difficult in the hospital. And I'm not certain that the nurse-midwives would understand it as fully as I feel Lis will. Maybe that's because she initiated a discussion about spirituality and birth, and maybe that's not encouraged in a hospital setting... but whatever the reason, it's another piece of why I'm pleased with my decision.
