It was cold that night. One of those nights here in Appalachia that cause stillness. Everything was moving in slow motion. My blood felt thick under my skin. Stagnation comes with the freeze. This was a couple of nights ago. It was the perfect night for a birth, actually. I got the call as I was leaving work. I drove through the back country roads thinking of her, the mama, all the way.
The back way is actually the fastest route to her house, so I decided to take it. It was a witchy night; the kind that brings storms and lovers and babies. I thanked the Universe, as I always do, for allowing me in on this secret. I sent out thanks to the mama who was allowing me to bear witness. I wondered where she was: a silent, introspective 6 centimeters? A fierce and primal 9? I wondered about her husband and other children. I wondered if the midwife had gotten to her yet or if I would be the first. I felt her quickness. I knew she was going fast.
Ani Difranco was lamenting from the stereo in my old Jetta. I thought about all the women who have allowed me to be with them through this, and I thanked them all silently while I listened to Ani rail against the patriarchy. I will never understand feminists who do not support the birthing rights movement. The control over the birthing options of women by paternalistic obstetricians is based wholly on a lack of trust of women. Women’s bodies are broken. We need Western Obstetricians to tell us when and how to eat, drink, push, inject, disinfect, labor, breathe. Women are being sold this bill of goods that the good doctor will liberate them from the torment that is surely childbirth. Meanwhile, here in the US, we continually rank nearly the worst in infant mortality rates. Our local c-section rate is nearly 50%! The World Health Organization says 15% is optimum. They are trying to tell us that nearly half of the women here in Appalachia have bodies that are broken. Mother Nature must have messed up. They have babies that are too big—too small--sideways—upside down—backwards. Mother Nature left a whole lot of them with uteruses that simply won’t contract or cervices that won’t dilate. Never mind that it is a rare, rare mammal that needs any intervention at all in childbirth. Nature usually gets it right. Why would women be any different?
I’ll tell you why—it is because the power we have to create life and bring it to this planet threatens the heartless center of the patriarchy. Childbirth as we know it today—taking place solely in the hospital-- has only been around since the 1920’s but traditional midwifery was slipping away long before then. Still, before 1900 about 95% of births were taking place outside of the hospital and by 2000 99% of births were inside of a hospital. Obstetricians did not win the battle because they were producing better outcomes than midwives or because hospital birth was safer. They won because of their sure and steady smear campaign that demonized midwives and force fed the idea that women needed rescuing from the tribulations and suffering of childbirth. Women bought it because they had to. Where else were they gonna go? Midwives all but disappeared in most places and with the new fancy maternity hospitals in every neighborhood and sold on the idea that birth=eve’s sin=physical torment, they slowly came to the new Obstetricians and willingly gave their bodies over to ether and twilight sleep and a host of other sad and harmful practices.
The word Obstetrician, not even coined until the 1820’s, comes from the Latin meaning “to stand before” . The word midwife comes from Middle English and means “with woman”. The first assumes a role of power, a sense of authority. The second conveys a partnership, a cooperation.
But, I digress…
The night held that certain witchiness I was describing. I drove the hour and 20 mins to her house through those dark, twisty country roads. The mountains rose up over my car and I felt inspired and protected. I stood outside of her door for a moment and breathed in the wind and the chill and the waning moonlight from the year’s fullest moon who rose only two nights before.
Her house was quiet—the darkest, stillest one on the block. I didn’t even need to check the house number. This was the birthing place. I could feel it, even though I hadn’t ever been there before. There was unmistakable warmth coming out of it. She had a fat, 10lb baby very shortly after I got there. Once again I was grateful to be there, basking in this mama’s joy and power. She was radiant there, on her bed, with her other kids and her partner and they were all on the same trip I was—drinking in this mama’s strength and love and grace. Such a gift she gave her children—the gift of normal birth. They will grow up believing in the normalcy of birth and in their bodies.
She whispered to me before I left: “I knew it would be wonderful if I wasn’t afraid”
I left there wishing it weren’t such a secret—that all women could feel what she had just felt—
That all women could be encouraged by a community of other women to trust their bodies and their babies. Imagine a world where women reclaimed that fundamental right of trust. It would change the whole fucking world.
