Birth: the play, and real life

I went to see "Birth: The Play" last night. Last year when I went I was about 13 weeks pregnant with Maggie. The play is intense in itself, but was made more intense by the anticipation of my fourth birth, and what that might be like. This year, I held Maggie securely in my arms as I watched the play. Being on the other side of my births is a lot more comfortable place to be in. Although I have the day to day anxiety of raising children, for some reason it is not nearly as intense and fraught with worry as the preparation for giving birth to my children. Being pregnant is not easy in anyway...the physical, emotional, psychological demands are tremendous and cannot be walked away from as the physical reminders are within one's own physical being. I watched with interest last night as the characters played out there pregnancies and birth experiences, but at the end of the night I could just walk away and not play them over and over in my mind. It reminded me that those of us who are on the other side of the threshold never to cross back over can give out advice like it's going out of style. However, we no longer are in the arena where the consequences of that advice have to play out...in otherwards the rubber doesn't have to hit the road. The gravity of the situation is not so intense for us.

The play did bring up some of the issues that I had with Maggie's birth. It was wonderful in that she was actually born - we were all starting to wonder 2.5 weeks after her due date. However, it was not nearly as serene as my previous 2 births, and was not what I expected. I pictured a dark, night with my daughters by my side, an intense and quick experience, preferably before my due date. Instead Magdelena was born in the daytime at the brightest part of the day, my children were all gone, and it lasted "forever!" Expectations play a huge role in determining how the mother sees the birth, and this was not it for me! 

So, in order to keep serving pregnant and laboring women, I need to remember to empty my cup that is full of all my personal birth issues. I also need to remember that what now seems kind of inane to me in my status as a "post-childbearing mother" was so grave and anxiety ridden in my time of trial. I hope and pray I never lose the ability to come alongside and be.