They both seemed unnaturally jittery. Tom was staring at the floor, loudly clearing his throat and wringing his hands, looking morose. Caroline was looking at him, clearly puzzled. She and her husband were here for their thirty-six week checkup. They had been married for eight years, and until this visit, had seemed thrilled to be having a baby.
“So…what’s up?” I asked. Tom’s head slumped down. He seemed to be intently studying the pattern in the carpet. Caroline shrugged her shoulders, continuing to stare quietly at her husband.
Hmmm…curious… I had a hunch. “Tom, when you try to imagine Caroline in labor—giving birth—what comes to your mind? Any expectations?” I asked.
His head shot up and he glared at me, eyes bugged out, like I could see into his mind. “Well, I sure hope she isn’t a wimp,” he sputtered, looking away. Caroline looked incredulous, “WIMP?” she protested.
“I see…and what does the word wimp mean to you, Tom?” I gently asked. He sat pensively for a long while, and then, with a big sigh, he replied…“Well, I’ve been talking to my friends, and they told me that I better start pumping iron right now—getting into shape—because this birth business is painful and grueling, and Caroline is going to depend heavily on me…and…and…” he confessed, while studying the carpet again, “I’m so afraid that I won’t measure up. I’ve never told her this, but when the going gets tough, it’s Caroline that gets going. She is the rock of this family. She keeps everything together. I depend on HER. What am I going to do? What if I fail her?”
Caroline looked with tenderness at her husband. “My darling, man. I had no idea that you felt that way, that you saw these qualities as strengths! How wonderful!" And then she smiled…”I’ve been talking to MY friends as well. They have urged me to not waste this opportunity by trying to ‘keep it together’ for this birth—that it’s too powerful an experience—and that I should just go for it and see what happens!”
“Ah,” I said. “Let’s talk”… “Caroline, what do you need from Tom during the birth?”
“First of all,” she asked him, “Do you want to be there, Tom? Because I don’t want you to do something that you don’t…” “Oh, I do. I really do,” he interrupted. “Well, then,” she said, “I need to be free to do whatever the hell I feel like doing during labor, and I just need you to not worry and freak out.”
“Is that it…just don’t freak out? Is that all you need?” he asked. “Yep. That’s it. Do we have a deal?” “Absolutely. We have a deal,” he replied, breathing again, visibly relieved.
With each successive prenatal visit they continued to explore this new territory in their relationship. When she went into labor at forty weeks they felt ready.
This normally reserved woman took the pins out of her hair, letting it cascade down her back. She threw her clothes across the room. With hands in the air she undulated her hips with every contraction. Sometimes she would drop to the floor and rock from side to side. Between contractions she would look at her husband, grabbing him. “You come and kiss me right now!”
Then she would pull away from his arms and throw herself onto the bed or strut around the room, moaning and hollering and wailing. She was passionate and sexy. He was stunned and in love. “I have never seen her like this before,” he beamed. “WOW!”
After the baby was born, I sat back and quietly watched this family welcome their new son. Something very important had happened here, and it would deeply inform the way I cared for women. Their ability to honestly explore together their felt experience and expectations, freed them both to touch fully into their richest instincts and truth. I realized that it could have gone so differently had we not done this.
"There must be a problem. Something is wrong with my wife!"...
Husband freaking out. Get it together—Get it together—Birth stalls out...
How many women, I wondered, are subjected to unnecessary birth interventions for “failure to progress”, when it might be more truthfully, “failure to dust out the pre-birth cobwebs”…
More smiles, more tears.. :)
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