So maybe I've got too much time on my hands being off work for the summer, but I've been reflecting a lot on this journey, and just last night I finished reading Birthing From Within, an amazing book written mostly to empower women to give birth naturally, but which also examines our birth culture and the way women think and feel about pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. This was the part of the book that impressed me the most. It put into words what I've been feeling but unable to express. Pregnancy is such a unique experience... I don't believe that there's anything else on earth that can make one feel so grounded and close to nature, and yet so in tune with the universe in a very spiritual way. I've never felt so close to Chris, or to my mother, or to every other woman, for that matter... And at the same time, I'm so wrapped up in my own little world. I feel as though I'm the only person who's ever been through this, but then I find myself almost obsessed with drawing on the experiences of other women, devouring every birth story I can get my hands on.
Feeling this connection to other women, to the earth, to the universe has made me even more resolved to give birth naturally, with as little medical intervention as possible... But that's an entirely separate tangent, which I'm sure I'll be writing about at another time. It astounds me, though, how in so little time (relatively), our culture has taken pregnancy and childbirth and made them medical problems to be treated. I've been very fortunate to have an easy pregnancy with no complications, and I know this. I also know that medical technology has saved the lives of many mothers and babies. I've even enjoyed what are probably a few too many ultrasounds just to see this baby's sweet face. But this just feels like- or rather, it is- the most natural thing in the world. It's without a doubt the oldest tradition handed down from mother to mother, and I am so excited to partake in it the way that nature intended.
