No Stork Involved, but Mom and Dad Had Help
Imagine hearing this as a child:
‘First you have to get married, then you have to have a nice house, then you can go to a doctor, and he can help you…’
This is sick on so many levels.
“We don’t have a culture in the United States of taking rest before the birth of a child because there is an assumption that the real work comes after the baby is born,” said Guendelman. “People forget that mothers need restoration before delivery. In other cultures, including Latino and Asian societies, women are really expected to rest in preparation for this major life event.”
According to new research from UC Berkeley, I should consider leaving my current job quite a bit before 38 weeks, to reduce my risk of caesarean section.
Now I am torn. We need the money that I would earn from three more weeks of my working. It would provide for one more month of rent to sustain us through our self-funded maternity leave before I resume working in the fall. Is the stress-level of my job low enough that I need not worry about restore myself before the birth?
Furthermore, my daughter came into this world with amazing rapidity – only two hours of labor. I gave birth naturally, in a birth house and in a birthing tub. We are planning a homebirth this time. Is my risk of C-Section so low, that we can afford to challenge these odds?
I don’t know what to do.
This is the question most asked by observers of my baby bump. (If I were so nosy, I would ask every mother-to-be where she intends to give birth, as this is so much more revealing and important.) But I answer, “I would like to know, but we aren’t doing any ultrasounds.” Most people do not ask a follow-up question, but I wish they would, for I never mind an occasion for my own little bit of advocacy – against the invasion of the baby’s privacy that ultrasounds entail and in favor of more meaningful ways of making pregnancy ‘real’ (see my post on Haptonomy).
So, do I have a preference? Well, actually I do. I am hoping for a boy (although I have never before articulated this sentiment). A sister would be a great gift for my daughter – a life-long best friend – so I will not be disappointed if we have a girl. But I hope for a boy for two reasons.
First, my daughter has set a tough standard to live up to. I fear that a younger daughter would have too much difficulty emerging from her shadow. If we have a boy, everyone, second child included, would be much less likely to compare him to his big sister.
Second, I would like to prove to all the parents of poorly behaved boys (including my brother and sister-in-law), that such behavior is not inevitable in boys. Along these lines, I feel as though I have mastered the art of raising a girl, but a boy offers new challenges and experiences, and I would like to prove myself not just lucky, but rather, instrumental in shaping my children into who they are, primarily through extended breastfeeding and through staying home with them through the first few years.
So, a short post with which to return to blogging after the Christmas break.
Having been pregnant with my daughter and then given birth to her in a French-speaking country, I had the tremendous blessing of a haptonomic preparation for the birth. I credit haptonomy with the speed of my daughter’s birth (2 hours of noticeable labor), her high alertness at the birth (and ever since), and her continuing acute awareness of the space around her. She came into the world with confidence and surety. While I delivered the placenta, she and my husband looked deeply into eachother’s eyes, and the intensity of her gaze has never diminished. And she has always known her physical limitations and she never bumps into other people or objects (which you know, if you spend any time around small children, is rare). Needless to say, we are repeating this preparation with the child currently in my womb.
What is this haptonomy that brings about such self-awareness? Well, this is not so easy to answer. Haptonomy was founded by Frans Veldman and is now taught exclusively at the institute that he founded in the south of France. The website of this institute presents some introductory material, but, be forewarned, it elucidates little. If you understand spoken French, then I highly recommend the following three videos (1, 2, 3), the three parts of a special broadcast on French television. Even if you don’t understand what the lecturer, Catherine Dolto, says, if you are patient, you will see some amazing photographs and videos of haptonomy in practice.
The word haptonomy derives from the Greek and means the science of touch. As a prenatal accompaniment, it aims to develop an affective relationship between the father and the baby and to strengthen the mother-father-baby triad. Through touching the mother and talking to the baby, the father communicates with the baby, and the baby responds.
Now, this is not the normal putting-the-hands-on-the-belly in which most parents engage. First, the mother must be present in her base. Second, the father must extend beyond his own flesh and feel beyond the point of contact when touching the mother. Third, the father must know where and how to touch. A philosophy of human relating supports each haptonomic motion.
In more practical terms, every day we make time as a family to practice haptonomy with the baby. I recline on our bed. My husband straddles my legs and places his hands on my belly. He then greets the baby, identifies himself, and then calls the baby to one side of the womb and then to the other. And the baby moves. My husband then rocks me and the baby with movements that are too complex to describe. Then with a simple concluding motion, he completely realigns my spine and creates more space in the womb for the baby.
Haptonomy has made me fervently pro-life. Who could kill a being capable of responding so meaningfully to our overtures? I also now view ultrasounds as an aggressive intrusion into the life of my unborn child.
Perhaps you wonder where to find a practionner of haptonomy. As far as I know, nowhere. We traveled to French-speaking Canada to refresh our knowledge. I write about it here in the hopes of creating a demand.
My first piece of advice is a bit unconventional and perhaps not very conservative: conceive the child at the height of passion, by which I mean, do not wait so long that intimate relations have lost their original fire. Of course, I do not advocate not having children for those who have passed this moment in a relationship. But for those who have not passed it, I would urge them not to delay.
Such advice may seem foolhardy. But in truth, although I do not have the statistics to back me up, I would doubt that the length of a relationship prior to having children has any bearing on the rate of divorce after having children. Some would argue that a relationship needs a foundation before adding children. This sounds reasonable, but based on our own experience, I know that it is absolutely not necessary.
My husband and I conceived our daughter very early in our relationship, at the height of our passion. And it was a blessing for the following two reasons. First, every time I look at our daughter – and I mean really look at her, to admire her – her face reminds me of our passion. Her being, as an embodiment of our passion, can even snap me out of moments of frustration, impatience, or anger.
And I still believe in that passion because it has never had the chance to diminish. Pregnancy and breastfeeding hit the pause button on our passion, but as soon as our daughter weaned herself, we hit play, and our passion picked up right where we had left off. We had a little less time and energy, but the same passion was there when we conceived our second child, the one I now bear.
And now, pregnant for the second time, the passion is not only a memory, but a hope for the future. I look at my husband with the same adoration and longing as when we first fell in love. Our physical chemistry is such that perhaps it willl never diminish, and perhaps we could have easily waited. But I know, from previous relationships and the experiences of others, that in most relationships, passion wanes.
Feminism and the wide-spread availability of birth control attempt to his sever this link between physical passion and reproduction. I certainly had no real notion of this link until I became so overcome by passion that conceiving a child seemed the most natural outcome. But now I speak very openly to my daughter about how babies are conceived, or at least how they should be conceived and how physical intimacy should be experienced. Bambi (2-Disc Special Platinum Edition)
has a fantastic word and example for children to understand the connection between sex and reproduction – twitterpation. Watch the movie if you want to know what I mean and need a good point of reference when talking with your children.
Right Mothering
