birthing

This is about pregnancy, childbirth and the days, months and now years that have passed since the arrival my children. I had cravings, but not the kind that involve the stereotypical pickles and ice cream of pregnancy. They were soul cravings. They were cravings of abolishing fears that had gripped me for as long as I can remember. Cravings that I would be the kind of parent that would be able to instill health, self-esteem and wellness in my children's lives. At the time of my first pregnancy, I did not believe I had satisfied these cravings.

In a prenatal class the instructor asked, "what are your fears about giving birth?" Instantly I thought, tearing my perineum and having stitches in my crotch. I've spoken quite a bit about this in other birth-related writings, but here I want to go a bit deeper. This simple question posed changed the course of my life forever. 

With the help, experience and knowledge of my childbirth educators, I began to uncover real and tangible methods to prevent tearing of the perineum during vaginal delivery. WONDERFUL!

Afraid of tearing.
Don't birth on my back.
OK, I'm NOT gonna do that.
and maybe TMI, but FYI, I birthed in alternate positions and I did NOT tear...

Next set of fears...ummm...that's a bit more tricky, doctors...and ummm...hospitals...dealing with this was much more difficult as there were no regulated midwives, only private practices and we did not have the money nor was I particularly interested in midwifery care at this point. That was a world away in my mind.

However, in this same prenatal class I began to look more carefully at my fear of medical environments. Now to be honest, I have a much more expanded version of this in my personal birth story of the day our daughter was born, but for this post, those details do not need to be expanded upon...and also, I'm not quite ready to share it publicly.

There was in my lifetime, a series of physical ailments that I suffered from as a young child into my early adulthood: immensely long headaches often lasting for days at a time, crippling stomach pains, heart and chest pains that would affect my ability to breath and function and an overall longterm feeling of lethargy and exhaustion. While I did share some of these with my parents, usually I kept to myself and just became used to living in this uncomfortably strange state. 

As a young person, you lack the ability to understand that your own life experiences may be entirely different than those around you. I wrongly assumed for many years that living with physical pain was the average experience of children and teenagers.

When I was sixteen, I began dating a handsome and gentle young man and it was in spending time with him and his family that I started to uncover that my view of the world was skewed. His home was so peaceful, he was so kind and in getting to know him more, I discovered that he could wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the day. I don't EVER remember feeling like that. NOT ONCE. I began to feel like a bit of an anomaly as I entered my early adulthood.

It wasn't long before I began to explore the strange state of my physical exhaustion and all attempts to find health were met with more unanswered questions. I specifically remember a Doctor prescribing Ativan and telling me to place it under my tongue. At the time it seemed like the stupidest thing, how would sticking this little disolvable tablet in my mouth erase years of exhaustion? Well, short story, it didn't. And neither did any of the other prescribed or suggested treatments. So I gave up.

It was shortly after highschool ended that I threw myself into my dance career. Being in the studio was the first time I experienced any type of physiological peace. After classes my eyes would sparkle and I would feel awake and alive. It was quite simply, the most effective treatment to the sleepiness I had known my entire life. It was beautiful and liberating and addictive...and it kept me alive as I began to unfold the roots of my seemingly odd existence; I had been molested as a very small girl by an extended family member.

After what felt like a failed attempt to disclose my childhood sexual abuse to a loved one, I shut down that part of my brain entirely...that is when my chest pain began to increase. I remember having a friend over late one night and I began to experience such intense pain that I thought my heart was seizing. Yelling for my parents, they called an ambulance, which must have been a horrible moment for them as we lived about 25 minutes from the nearest city. I kept crying at my Dad saying, "my heart hurts, MY HEART HURTS," and it did, but not my physical heart...it was the heart of my soul collapsing in on itself. 

That night was a turning point for me. In the end my parents cancelled the ambulance and drove me into the local hospital where they could find nothing physically wrong with me other than what could only be described as an intense anxiety attack. But I knew. I knew without a doubt that my body was screaming to me, "start. start now. there is an end to this pain, and it will be hard, but you must start now. start on this very night" And I did.

I never told a soul what I discovered that night...my body was fearfully and wonderfully made and it had been speaking truth to me for years until I was mature enough to see what was in front of me. I was about to begin climbing a mountain with seemingly endless, painful, exhausting pathways that would take me to it's liberating peak. From this peak I clung to the knowledge that upon reaching the summit I would see clearly that there were thousands upon thousands of survivors that had created the tread to the peak and were well on their way down the other side of the mountain. Conversely, there were thousands upon thousands who were behind me, some still lying at the base of the mountain, perhaps still to young to understand what had brought them there in the first place. For those behind me, I pray.

Childhood sexual abuse.

What a shameful dirty secret we harbour in our culture...but have hope, there have been and will continue to be people who will speak the truth about these things.

Coming back to the original title, cravings. You see, one week before delivering my daughter I realized that I had been listening to a song titled, "Charlotte" and in it was the devastating story of a woman set on the wrong path. That name coupled with those lyrics were a small grace as I was just days away from holding my very own Charlotte. It was in her first four years that I would battle my final demons of childhood sexual abuse.

The desire to birth my child naturally and without the slightest intervention didn't come from a "best for baby" or "vaginal/intervention and drug-free births are superior" perspective, although I do believe it can be one of the most beautiful ways for baby and mom to meet face to face first time: alert and awake with less emphasis on the often uncomfortable postpartum physical recovery. The birthing hopes I had stemmed from years of counseling and battlling with sheer determination and grit to seek health that I could pass along to my children.

It upsets me to no end when there is criticism of how people choose to birth. Instinctively, I believed that a key part of my survival and recovery was to birth my child in this manner. You must remember, for years I lived in physical pain and sought to abolish it, but in reality, it was that pain which held the key to my freedom. It pointed me in a truthful direction. While I lived with many discomforts, I came to embrace physical pain as a crucial stepping stone in my healing journey.It took almost 30 years to uncover this about myself. Victims of sexual abuse (and possibly other forms) come to believe that their needs, thoughts and instincts are of little value, but as parents, we come to learn that following these instincts can be our greatest parenting tool. Parental decisions are the foundations upon which our children's futures are built. We hope we've given them the best before we have to release them into the challenging and often intimidating world from which we've tried to protect them.

As I experienced profound healing, so might others experience vital victories in welcoming their children in other manners. There are women who require full epidurals as their body memories are too great for them to experience physical waves of contractions. There are those who request cesarean birth as the trauma they experienced vaginally is too crippling. And then like myself, there are those who go on to choose homebirth for subsequent births. These were not decisions made strictly with emotion or intellect, but it was a culmination of the many complex facets that accompany and challenge the birthing practices we have in our current culture.

The homebirth of my son three and half years later was a beautiful event. It did take some time for me to provide my husband with the real reason I felt so compelled to birth at home. Aside from the fact that this was my second smooth and extremely healthy pregnancy, there was a much deeper reason I wanted our son to make his arrival in the quiet safety of our home. For years I had battled the painful memories and often tortuous reality of how sexual abuse forever changed my life. I was blessed and able to welcome a new young gentleman in the same corners of my home that had been my battle ground against the demons and memories born of an abuse experience. A new generation of males had been born in my bloodline, this was a fresh start for me. Rather than feel deconstructed by a man, I was going to have the honour and privilege to raise up a young man with the help of my loving husband and alongside our sweet girl.

As an aside, my son was born a couple of weeks early. He quickly and efficiently entered the world on July 4th, 2010, better known as Independence Day. It was an important victory for my family and one we are forever grateful to have shared with our beloved friend and Doula and the care of two local midwives.

I respectfully ackowledge that we are a rich, rich country and it is with relative ease that we have access to tremendous care in our childbearing years. It is no small feat to beat death and preserve life. Medically speaking, this has been done triumphantly time and time again. But might I challenge you to consider the a task we have yet to fully articulate and embrace, and that is finding other successful methodologies for preserving and protecting the mental, emotional and spiritual side of life as well. I cannot speak to numbers or statistics, but I think we are all aware of the cost to our system in dealing with mental health issues. There is in fact a cost to treat these very real conditions, and they are no less important to our societal health.

Just recently I spent several hours in the local ER (seeking help for a constipated baby) when I watched the eye-rolling of the nurses as they wheeled in a young woman who was a "repeat customer" experiencing yet another anxiety attack. There are still so many stigmas attached to mental illness and we as a society are struggling to find longterm solutions. 

What do our women need in order to make their first days as mothers better? What impact do our local birthing options have in the longterm health of our families? Why do we continue to try and separate the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual aspect of health during pregnancy and birth? These are important questions that require thoughtful answers.

While I accept the grand importance of considering the baby's experience in birth, we must also be compassionate to embrace the mother's and fathers who are to raise them. Our families deserve a good start, we will be in better health as a whole if we remember the value of nurturing parent's as well. It is not selfish, nor is it wrong to advocate for birthing options that take into consideration the importance of wholistic health and wellness.

I often wish people would think twice before contributing comments to an already divisive and greatly misunderstood area of societal health. These are life-changing moments and they deserve the utmost care as we all seek to find solutions to the wide array of needs within in our communities.

A couple of months ago my daughter and I had the privilege to attend the Cirque de Soleil Immortal tour. One of the numbers boasts a hot air balloon flying over the crowd as Michael Jackson sings in the backgroud, "have you seen my childhood?...." Driving home Charlotte tells me this was her favourite song. "Where did his childhood go Momma? Why was he looking for it?" Let me tell you, that was an interesting conversation...and it makes me so grateful to be at this stage of my life. I can answer my five-year-olds question with sincerity and joy. She also asked me the other day, "are we rich Momma?" to which I replied, "absolutely Lovie. We are rich and I have all that I could ever ask or hope for!"

This is a photo from our night out and at my feet stand two of the most important people I've ever had the pleasure to know. What you don't see in this photo is the years of hard work, counseling, grit and determination to find value in myself. I did it for me, and my children are the beneficiaries of this hard work. Women need to know that it's not only okay, but it is vitally important that they take care of themselves as well. Peace within the home is not something to be underrated, in fact, I wish it was valued on the top of the list. The pathway to that peace is not something to be determined by societal trends or top-ranked "steps to wellness" but rather, I believe it is a deep-rooted desire and instinct that we all have within us to live a life in which we can love and be loved. Your needs matter, and it's okay to take a moment to consider what those needs are. Grab a hot cup of coffee, take a deep breath and think on that for a quiet moment. Warmly~Kirsty